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ANOTHER ENGLISHWOMAN’S 
LOVE-LETTERS 



Another 

Englishwoman 

Love-Letters 


By 


Barry Pain 





G. P. Putnam’s Sons 
New York and London 
tlbe IRntcftcrbocfter BJress 

1901 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAR. 28 1901 

C(^YRIQHT ENTRY 
CLASS fl^XXa N«. 
COPY B. 




COPYRIGHT, 1901 
BY 

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 


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XTbe ftniciterbocber press, Dew l^orlt 


Preface 


The production of An English- 
woman’s Love-Letters was — if 1 
may use the common phrase with- 
out offence — well engineered; and 
I happen to admire engineering 
most when it is confined to en- 
gines. The form and binding of 
the book blended the two styles 
which 1 love least — the precious 
and the shoddy — and smelled 
of ten years ago. The book’s pop- 
ularity had made two questions 
wearisome to me by their frequent 
importunity. I was, and still am, 
tired of being asked whether 1 think 
the letters are genuine ; and I hope 


VI 


Preface 


I may be spared for the future the 
nauseous problem as to the precise 
degree of consanguinity, if any, be- 
tween the separated lovers. In fact, 

I began to read the book with every 
prejudice against it, and ended by 
thinking it cleverly done and pos- 
sessed of some charm and pathos. 
Yet there is the sentimentality 
against which the author has tried 
in vain to guard: the perusal gives 
one rather the feeling that one has 
been eating caramels to excess in a 
moonlit churchyard. Of course, if 
the book had not had value I should 
never have dreamed of having a 
little fun with it : servants break 
only valuable things. Besides, I 
do not look forward to a sea-green 
flood of sentimental literature, let 
loose on the public in consequence 


Preface 


vii 

of the success of An Englishwo- 
man’s Love-Letters, with any equa- 
nimity. One forgives everything 
to the founder of a school except 
the school. 

And of course the publication 
of the fooling which follows this 
preface answers, so far as 1 am con- 
cerned, the first of those two ques- 
tions, and answers it in a negative 
as decided as 1 can make it. It is 
difficult to imagine that anybody 
would have the treacherous impu- 
dicity to publish the love-letters of 
a woman recently dead, without 
even a plea of historical interest. 
Nothing on earth could excuse such 
a publication, and one would be 
sorry to be even in the most remote 
manner connected with it. Those 
letters are not genuine ; they con- 


Preface 


viii 

tain overwhelming evidence that 
they are art ; and I think that any- 
one who is in the habit of writing 
stories or of studying the technique 
of story-writing cannot fail to see 
this. They may have some very 
slight foundation in fact, for artists 
use models, but that is of no im- 
portance. It is worth notice that 
the author in the introduction 
makes many efforts to make read- 
ers believe that the letters are 
genuine, but is careful to avoid a 
plain statement that they are 
genuine. 

And as I have nothing further 
explanatory to say, 1 may now 
proceed to the explanation. 


Explanation 


Circumstances which occurred at Pon- 
tresina in the spring of last year have cul- 
minated in an absolute necessity for the 
publication of the following letters. In 
what way this has happened cannot be 
more clearly indicated during the life of the 
present Emperor of China, and no clue to 
the mystery will be found in the letters 
themselves. Those who know will keep 
silence ; if anyone speaks, that may be 
taken as evidence that he does not know. 
In this way I trust that the mystery may 
be preserved and the sale of the book 
stimulated. 

The letters are printed exactly as they 
were written, with the exception of such 
alterations, additions, and omissions as may 
happen to have been made. In order to 
meet the requirements of the Food Adult- 
eration Act, no absolute guarantee of their 
genuineness can be given, but every effort 
has been made to secure the contrary. 

And that is as much explanation as the 
present editor thinks to be good for you. 


IX 



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Another Englishwoman’s 
Love-Letters 


Letter I 

Beloved: This is your first letter 
from me ; yet it is not the first I 
have written to you. That sent- 
ence would naturally end with the 
words, What relation was A. toB.? 
Yet indeed 1 ask no conundrum. 
There are letters to you in this same 
writing lying in love’s waste-paper 
basket. 

This is my confession. 1 gather 
from a good model, recently pub- 
lished, that it is peculiarly charac- 


2 Another Englishwoman’s 

teristic of the Englishwoman to 
take off her self-respect as it had 
been a garment before entering 
upon an epistolary course of affi- 
anced love. 1 wrote love-letters to 
you long before 1 had brought you 
up to the point. 

I may go further, and beat the 
original Englishwoman on her own 
ground. 1 wrote letters to you even 
before 1 had ever met you or heard 
about you. They were to my be- 
trothed, whoever it might be, like 
the trade circulars which are marked 
“Or Present Occupier.” One has 
to get ready for things beforehand. 
1 got in a stock of letters for my en- 
gagement just as 1 shall get in my 
trousseau for my — am I brazen ? 
Once engaged, visits and congrat- 
ulations occupy one so much that 


Love-Letters 


3 


one has little time left for literary 
composition. And unless one is 
literary, how are one’s letters to be 
made into a tender little volume, 
bound in imitation vellum, which 
cockles when you open the book, 
and provided with green silk shoe- 
laces to tie it down flat again ? 

And you never knew ? Dearest, 
1 love you for it, and am trying to 
believe that the disclaimer is not 
made out of politeness. There 
were moments when 1 felt that 1 
was being fairly obvious ; the dear 
Uncle Grandmother took the same 
view. You see, I am so young. 
When I take anything up 1 work 
hard at it. 1 worked very hard at 
my engagement. It was trying — 
you will forgive me for saying this 
—to see you still hanging back 


4 Another Englishwoman’s 

when everything was perfectly 
ready. And I could not speak ; 1 
could only get lost at picnics and 
sit out dances in desolate places 
with you, and use my eyelashes. 

1 can never work for myself 
again. You must do that for me 
now ! This is such a rest to me. 
You are you, and you are all the 
rest as well. 1 lie in the beyond, 
and watch all else as shadows, and 
because of you. Read that through 
twice, and let me know what you 
make of it. 

Dear U. G. has such quaint, pre- 
cise little ways. She would like 
you to put it into writing, so that 
she may take it to Somerset House 
and get it stamped. If you do this, 
it must be simply to please her. 
For myself, 1 need nothing but you. 


Love-Letters 


5 


Oh, the perfect youness of you ! 
Devotion is unsatisfying, and ab- 
jection must come to its help. I 
am your footstool, your door-mat. 
I kiss your beautiful, great boots. 


6 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter II 

My jujube, my toy -lamb, my 
prize tomato ! 

And so she was a left-all-alone 
little girl, and had n’t got no one to 
play with, and was all sobby-wob- 
by. But he will come back to his 
teeny-weeny pussy-woosy-woosy 
just as soon as ever the naughty 
peoples will let him. Then he shall 
jump into a trainkin, and not never 
have no collisions, and puff-puff 
quite safe to the stationlet where 
his onliestest will be waiting for 
him with her tongue out. 

And, O Angel-bird, if you happen 
to be going in the direction of Bond 


Love-Letters 


7 


Street, here ’s a bit of silk that I 
want you to 

Dearest : I am so sorry. The 
Uncle Grandmamma had borrowed 
my special style, and 1 was obliged 
to begin without it for fear of miss- 
ing the post. 1 am afraid 1 very 
nearly dropped into the genuine 
human document. My own style 
has a strenuous simplicity, an in- 
curable literary character, and an 
oleaginous sentimentality — with 
one spark of humour to every ten 
pages, to provide relief and deceive 
the very elect. Yes, 1 am sorry 
that in those lines above 1 have 
written like a happy woman in love 
— that is, like a dear idiot with a new 
home-made language. But you 
mustblametheU.G., notme. Dear 


8 Another Englishwoman’s 

U. G. wanted to write to her dress- 
maker (enclosing five pounds, and 
saying that she was surprised at the 
tone which had been taken), and she 
felt that my style was the very thing. 

She asked ; 1 could not refuse, 
and 1 know you are not angry. 
Though 1 love U. G. in a quiet, 
plum-jam way, but not the less 
real, she should be croquettes if you 
were hungry. The last phrase may 
not seem to you pretty, but it shows 
what can be done in the way of 
strong condensation. The ox in a 
tea-cup and the soul in a sentence 1 
You will observe that 1 have got my 
own style back again now. 

Even with that, it is dilficult to 
express complete abandonment and 
perfect self - restraint simultane- 
ously. 1 do my best. 


Love-Letters 


9 


So to-day you are in London, and 
London is illuminated. Here all is 
dark, until the gravel of the drive 
thunders to the wheels of the sta- 
tion cab, and the bell vibrates, and 
you fall into my arms. No, 1 am 
not unhappy. Only, my happiness 
sleeps on pink cushions in a tree- 
top nest until your wide, glorious 
smile wakes it. 

Adieu, most-rightly beloved. 


lo Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter III 

Dearest ; It has been such a 
funny day ! Congratulations on the 
great event are beginning to arrive. 
It is so witty of them to do that. 
They are posted, and then the post- 
man delivers them. 1 have laughed 
till 1 cried about it. Some are the 
mere wiffle-waffle of ordinary po- 
liteness, and some show such a 
deep and seeing sympathy. Lady 
M. writes : “ When a girl works 
patiently and perseveringly at any- 
thing, 1 am always glad to see her 
succeed.” Isn’t she sweet? Just 
after you had gone yesterday Mrs. 
Blank called and was told the news. 


Love-Letters 1 1 

She did not think she had ever seen 
you or heard of you. “ Come out 
of it,” I said, with a quiet smile. 
“ He must have met you at the 
gates just now.” She sank back 
in her chair and went deadly pale. 
She wants me to explain to you 
that the mistake was entirely due 
to her short sight. Even at the 
moment when you opened the gate 
for her she had doubts whether 
you really were the under-gar- 
dener ; she is convinced that there 
was nothing in your appearance to 
justify her in throwing you that 
sixpence. She repeated feverishly 
several times that she congratulated 
me very heartily. She seemed a 
good deal broken up, and did not 
stay long. 

Others are yet more quaint. Nan- 


1 2 Another Englishwoman’s 

nan, of course, is Nan-nan. She 
came into my room this morning 
with a martial tramp, humming the 
Wedding March and bringing me 
my tea. Nan-nan is distinctly 
naturlich, and if I do not report 
her remarks, it is merely because 1 
have got into the habit of drawing 
the line somewhere. If you want 
the details, apply to the other Eng- 
lishwoman. Personally, I must 
content myself with saying that 
Nan-nan was a little previous. 

When Roberts — no, not of Kan- 
dahar — brought round my pony 
this morning, he touched his hat 
sixteen times and did a step dance. 
1 thought it such a nice, cordial way 
of showing that he knew and ap- 
proved. Naturally, 1 invited him 
to discuss you with me, and he 


Love-Letters 


13 


said that he knew you when he 
was in service before, and that you 
were a ‘ ‘ rorty young dog. ” Grooms 
in this part of the country are 
allowed a freedom of expression 
which elsewhere might be thought 
almost disrespectful. 

“And Lord Lardy would smile and observe, 

' How strange are the customs of France!’ ” 

1 don’t know what “ rorty ” means, 
but I am sure you were, and 1 
would not have it otherwise. 1 had 
been meaning to show your photo- 
graph to the new kitchen-maid, and 
to collect some further expression 
of candid opinion. But she has 
only been here three weeks, and I 
have the feeling that 1 do not know 
her well enough. Am 1 too shy ? 
1 will be all that you wish. 


14 Another Englishwoman’s 

I have a great longing at times for 
you to set me difficult things to do. 
No ; not to say six times quickly 
that he stood at the door of Bur- 
gess’s Fish Sauce Shop, Strand, wel- 
coming him in. Bid rather my 
wings and my eyes. Do you see 
the meaning? If so, you are fortun- 
ate. O dear heart, forgive me for 
being no more than 1 am ; many 
people are no more than they are, 
and one has to put up with it. 
Ever your own, own. 


Love-Letters 


15 


Letter IV 

You told me, dearest, that I should 
find your mother formidable. 1 did ; 
if anything, you understated it. She 
is a person very much in the grand 
Berserker style. 1 admire it, but it 
comes a little heavy at an afternoon 
call. It seems to check anything 
that could be called expansion. Do 
you think you were quite wise to 
leave her to come alone ? It seemed 
to me that she should always have 
one or more attendants. 1 am told 
that some of the private asylums are 
quite comfortable, and trouble is 
taken to make the patients happy. 

1 like her ; 1 do trust that nothing 


1 6 Another Englishwoman’s 

1 have said has given you the im- 
pression that 1 don’t like her. 1 
hope that she will look in any time 
that she is passing, and if she will 
let me have a line beforehand, 1 
shall know what to do. 1 believe 
that under a manner which purists 
might call slightly rude, she conceals 
a heart of gold; but she seems unable 
to get change and put a little of it 
into general circulation. She could 
forgive theft from the person with 
violence, supposing that it were 
some other person. You feel at 
once that she will be sorry for it 
afterwards when she is quiet, and 
that when she is quiet she must be 
much less noisy. “Eccentric” — 
allowing the usual margin for 
politeness — sums her up. Oh, 1 am 
so fond of her 1 


Love-Letters 


17 


I understand, and can readily be- 
lieve, that you have known her for 
some few years, and 1 have met her 
only once ; so it would be presump- 
tuous for me to offer advice. Other- 
wise 1 would say — humour her. If 
she says that she is the Queen of 
Honolulu, and that she insists on 
your marrying Joan of Arc, 1 want 
you to welcome it as if it were a 
contribution to your plans for the 
future. Do be kind to her. Kind- 
ness, a straight waistcoat, and six 
easy lessons in how to behave at 
tea, are what she really wants. 

1 need not go through it all ; she 
will have told you all that did not 
happen, and by a process of exhaus- 
tion you can guess the rest. It was 
unfortunate that she should have 
come into the drawing-room with 


i8 Another Englishwoman’s 

the impression that she was engag- 
ing an up-and-down girl at a regis- 
try office. We did not shake hands. 
Our talk was very little of you. She 
began by asking me if I drank, and 
I asked her if she would like to go 
and see the canaries. 1 own I felt it. 
She said that she wanted a girl who 
would do the steps as they ought to 
be done, and not an upstart. Where 
did she get the upstart idea ? My 
family was known and respected in 
Brondesbury for upwards of three 
years before we came to live in the 
country. 1 guessed that she would 
like frankness. 1 said that there was 
some misunderstanding, and that 1 
wanted to marry her son. She re- 
plied that there was no harm in 
wanting, and that she had wanted 
her tea for the last half-hour. We 


Love-Letters 


19 


then went back to the drawing- 
room. 

With reference to that phrase of 
hers which you quote about the 
muffins being “stone cold,” I think 
that was partly because she insisted 
on taking them out into the hall and 
playing quoits with them. Is it 
quoits ? It is rather untidy ; so 
few of the muffins really went into 
the hat. She left early, and we 
have missed three teaspoons. 

I do like her ; she is worth win- 
ning. But there is something in 
her manner — I hardly know how 
to express it — which seems dilfi- 
cult to break through. It is hardly 
icy ; indeed it is distinctly informal. 
When 1 asked her if I might consider 
myself engaged, she said she would 
tell me that after she had taken up 


20 Another Englishwoman’s 

my character. It gave me the feeling 
that 1 had not really won her love. 

Did 1 mention that 1 do like her, 
and that she has a heart of gold ? 
1 had meant to tell you that. 

You must not think that I am 
hurt, either morally or physically. 
As regards the latter, only two of 
the mutfins hit me in the face, and 
they are quite soft. And we have 
been having such a treat since she 
left. The dog, Benjie, has gone 
mad. Nan-nan has taken to drink, 
and 1 have wept for the last twenty- 
four hours consecutively. But these 
little things cannot affect us finally, 
and 1 hardly know why 1 have 
mentioned them. 1 want you very 
much to kiss your mother for me. 
It will have to be a runaway kiss, 
but you run very well, don’t you ? 


Love-Letters 


21 


Perhaps it would be better and 
safer not to say that the kiss came 
from me. Only would that be act- 
ing a lie ? You see what a white 
soul 1 have got. 

Oh, rock me in Love’s cat’s-cradle 
high above the swaying tree-tops, 
till the moon clouds are my nighty 
and my star -dreams light you. 
That is a specimen of my meta- 
phorical style, so justly admired. 

Adieu, most beloved ! 


22 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter V 

Dearest Dearest : This then is 
why for the last four days 1 have 
had no word from you. You have 
sprained your poor ankle, and that 
prevents you from holding a pen. 
(By the way, did you ever read 
Nicholas Nickleby?) 1 am so sorry 
for your pain that 1 cannot bring 
myself to ask whether the story, 
considered as a story, is altogether 
good enough. To think that 1 
never knew! 1 may even have 
committed the unspeakable pro- 
fanity of writing with a light heart 
to you on whom this irreparable 
disaster has fallen. To a man with 


Love-Letters 


23 


a sprained ankle one must write in 
a sacred, hushed whisper. Well, 
1 will not worry at not being 
told, nor at not being able to 
come to you. Until your dear 
mamma begins to like me a little, 
and removes the second-hand pom- 
pom at present trained on your 
front entrance, 1 feel that it would 
be better for me to be patient. By 
the way, was it your mother that 
suggested that sprained ankle ? 
My letters must come instead of 
me, and take you up in their tender 
arms and kiss you to rags. You 
know, dearest, I do not love you 
any the less because you have got 
a sprained ankle ; if you had lost 
your sense of humour as well, as 1 
myself do at times, I should still 
love you. 


24 Another Englishwoman’s 

Also I am sending you books. 
They include Dr. Pifbright’s well- 
known Thoughts on the Epithelium, 
a Whitaker for the year before last, 
— full of useful information, — and 
An Englishwoman’s Love-Letters. 
You need not return any of them ; 
in fact, 1 have been wondering what 
to do with them for some time past. 
May 1 make a strange request ? 
1 desire that when you send me a 
present it may never be books. In 
all of them an alien voice speaks, 
and seems to drown the voice of 
you. 1 want to hear in your gifts 
your voice alone. Choose rather a 
diamond tiara or some other simple 
article of jewelry, dumb but for 
the words of love with which your 
voice has winged it. My birth- 
day is on the sixth of next month. 


Love-Letters 25 

when I shall be twenty-eight as 
usual. 

Yesterday 1 went for a long tramp 
into the country, and did not get a 
sprained ankle. (You will find 
neuralgia makes the best excuse ; 
it comes and goes so quickly, and 
defies detection.) As the day was 
hot, 1 sat down on a bank, and up 
came a poor carter in such distress. 
His silver watch had leaped out of 
his pocket that morning on his way 
up the hill, and he was now retra- 
cing his steps and looking for it. 1 
had not seen it, and could not help 
him. But as 1 went on my way up 
the hill 1 found a silver watch in 
the long grass by the roadside. 
My first impulse was to run after 
the man and ask if it was his ; but 
perhaps it was not the one ; silver 


26 Another Englishwoman’s 

watches are such common objects 
of the roadside ; and, besides, the 
day was really very warm. So I 
minded my own business interests; 
and now 1 feel so bad, being quite 
sure that it was his, and that he 
did not really wish to part with it. 
And I wondered whether the chain 
went with it ; but 1 could not find 
it, though 1 hunted for a long time. 

These microscopic and quite 
unintentional misdoings become 
“sins” to me, and haunt me al- 
ways. I have quite a collection of 
them, and I will tell you about them 
some day. They are a grief to me, 
and 1 hope that you will under- 
stand from this that 1 have got 
beautiful feelings and a white, 
sensitive soul. Otherwise what 
is the good of talking ? And, after 


Love-Letters 


27 


all, the shop at Sillingford would 
only give me five shillings on the 
watch, and they said that they had 
got cellars full of silver watches ; 
they ask one so many questions, 
too. 

This is our first separation, but 
unless we keep separated we shall 
never get enough letters to make 
up a volume. It has always seemed 
to me to be such a pity to waste 
anything. So when your dear 
ankle gets better, 1 think 1 shall 
trump up a tour in Italy or the Crys- 
tal Palace, or somewhere about 
there. Your Star, and don’t you 
forget it. 


28 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter VI 

Beloved : Indeed I am patient. 
I could prove that by telling you a 
little story about the Aunt Grand- 
mother at her devotions, but it is 
slightly irreverent, and only very 
reverent people like slightly irrever- 
ent stories. Besides, you will find 
something similar in the love-letters 
of the other Englishwoman. 

1 give you, instead, something 
that 1 was reading this morning, 
one of the old lays of the Chevalier 
Albert. 1 have translated it quite 
simply from the original : — 

“ Hast thou forgotten yet that night in May, 
At the tavern, at the sign of the Harp, 
which is as thou goest by Hendon ? 


Love-Letters 


29 


Thou didst choose some simple viand, 
some less potent drink : 

Myself — so said 1 — the wine of the 
country satisfies. 

** 'Give me some hope,’ 1 said, 'that I may 
win ! ’ 

Thou didst answer by a gesture, not by 
words. 

We were as happy as could be that day, 

At the tavern, at the sign of the Harp, 
which is as thou goest by Hendon.” 

If 1 were to alter the archaic style, 
for which the quaint old French 
seems to cry out, would you ever 
guess that the poet did not belong 
to this century ? Yet he did not.* 
That shows the permanent ele- 
ment in all good poetry, and gives 
the reason of my patience. I can 
remember — and kiss your old let- 
ters threadbare. Strange that in 

* Qu^rf.— But he does ? — Printer’s Reader. 

y4nswer.—She ’s all right. He did n’t once.— E ditor. 


30 Another Englishwoman’s 

your last you say “Extremes meet,” 
for now an ironical whim of Fate’s 
makes that true in your own house. 
I mean that you are afflicted in 
your foot, while your dear mother 
is weak in — but that is a sore 
point, or should be. 

You say that you have not been 
able as yet to go at all deeply into 
the Thoughts on the Epithelium. 1 
fear this must mean that you have 
been truly in pain. And 1 not there ! 
If 1 could but get to you, 1 would 
read some of the more difficult 
passages from the works of Mr. 
Meredith aloud to you. If that did 
not actually soothe you, it would 
at least make you forget your 
sprained ankle, and perhaps the rest 
of yourself as well. The treatment 
would be on counter-irritant lines. 


Love-Letters 31 

But I am not grumbling, and as a 
reward for my present submission 
1 hope that some day, some day. 
Love, I know not when or how, 
your mother will sprain her ankle in 
my company (just a very little bit 
for an excuse), and let me have the 
nursing of it ! What larks ! Ever 
your own home-cured one. 


32 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter VII 

Why, my beloved, — since you 
put it to me as a point of conscience, 
and 1 can have no secrets from you, 
feeling indeed like a conundrum 
that you have guessed, if that can 
be guessed which is not asked, 
though 1 suppose 1 was asked — 
one thing, at any rate (if one can 
ask for what one has already — but 
not to know that one has is almost 
the same as not to have, as some- 
body — 

Stop ! All change, please. 

1 am in a complicated mood this 
morning, and that sentence has 
got itself tied up. 1 could go on 


Love-Letters 


33 


with its conditional and restrictive 
clauses for about the same length 
as the other Englishwoman, but 1 
remember that you have a sprained 
ankle, and that may lessen your 
appetite for the gymnastic style in 
writing. So 1 will only say, since 
you call on me for a conscientious 
answer, that 1 have not yet secured 
a publisher for the letters. There 
are not enough of them to show 
yet, and 1 do hope that your dear 
mother understands that she must 
not break off the engagement until 
there are. 

O my dearest one, 1 have been 
thinking that it would bump the 
book out a little bigger if 1 included 
some or all of those letters that 1 
have mentioned to you already — 
love’s waste-paper basket, the let- 


34 Another Englishwoman’s 

ters that I wrote — so as to have 
them ready before you or anyone 
else of similar importance came 
along. 1 suggest, then, that your 
poor brain, worn by sleepless nights, 
is unequal to the task of mastering 
the different ways of addressing 
different titled people, so ably set 
forth in that back number of IVhita- 
ker. And 1 tear aside my poor last 
remnant of coyness, and give you 
instead those first outpourings of 
my soul before 1 had anywhere to 
outpour it. 1 cannot compete with 
the other Englishwoman in parody- 
ing the phrases of the liturgy, but 
you will observe in the first of the 
letters that 1 am not less ecstatic. 
The more 1 read them the more 1 
feel that it needed you to make me 
articulate ; in those letters 1 was 


Love-Letters 


35 


like one who hangs his hat on no 
peg at all. Now you are the eternal 
peg on which my hat and all of me 
hang for ever ; you hold me up in 
the stormy sea and shine on my 
path ; and before my metaphors 
get any worse 1 stop, only saying 
that 1 am always, dearest, your 
own. 


THE BASKET LETTERS 
A 

To * 

Oh, amen, amen, amen ! 

B 

Dear Sir : Now that 1 have 
never met you, 1 pray that you will 
be my friend. 1 want it so much. 

* In this space several names seem to have been in- 
serted at different times and subsequently erased. 


36 Another Englishwoman’s 

And even for that much I do not 
know how to ask ; it cannot be until 
you dawn on me. Oh, dawn soon ! 
Then 1 will ask for it, and see that 1 
get it, and reject imitations. 

Always to be your friend: that 
you shall be quite unable to dodge. 

c 

My Lord ; Long ago, when 1 
was still a child, 1 made myself 
pictures of you. I remember telling 
Nan-nan that you were my ideal, 
and she said that ideals did n’t wash. 
Do please wash, for mine and all 
the world’s sake : even for your 
own. And let it be soon, because I 
am not as young as 1 was. 

1 wonder if you are waiting for 
me, and where you are waiting. 
When will you materialise ? What 


Love-Letters 


37 


is the colour of your eyes and hair ? 
Are you of a refined, musical dis- 
position, affectionate and fond of 
home, healthy and industrious, and 
a convinced abstainer ? Shall 1 ad- 
vertise ? And 1 wonder if you are 
wondering if 1 am wondering. 
Everything is very wonderful, but 
just at present a little one-sided. O 
supplement of myself, be published 
soon ! 

D 

Your Royal Highness : That 
phrase is too magnificent to be cud- 
dlesome, but in truth 1 do not know 
how to address you. The Portu- 
guese Nun, Marie Bashkirtseff, and 
the other Englishwoman (and oh, 
what a beautiful tea-party those 
three would make 1 )were in this 
only happier than 1 am : they did at 


38 Another Englishwoman’s 

least know to whom they were 
writing. How can one linger over 
the adorable qualities of one whom 
one has never seen, about whom 
one has never heard ? All 1 know 
of you is that when you arrive you 
will be my friend to begin with, and 
that it will not be my fault if it 
stops at friendship. 

Now I must cover my blushes 
with both hands, and make a very 
terrible confession to you who are 
my beloved. Sometimes 1 have 
thought that you have arrived, and 
1 have been wrong. There have 
been some yous which were not 
really you. One finds out the mis- 
take, but to have made it is annoy- 
ing. 1 would that you were marked 
in plain figures, that if 1 only passed 
you in the street or saw you in a 


Love-Letters 


39 


crowd I might know that was you, 
and take steps accordingly. 

When one thinks how many 
people there are that one does not 
in the least want to marry, and how 
many there are that do not in the 
least want to marry one, and how 
small one’s social circle really is, 
any marriage at all seems a miracle. 
To think that, gives me the blue- 
moon hunger, for particulars of 
which 1 will refer you to the other 
Englishwoman. Yet it is a miracle 
that takes place occasionally ; so 
one gathers from the papers. Shall 
I be part of a miracle soon with 
your kind assistance ? 

E 

You ! Yes, I have no doubt this 
time. You have arrived, and it is 


40 Another Englishwoman’s 

really and truly you. There can be 
no doubt about it ; it is woven into 
every half-yard at the back ; it is 
on the capsule ; it is everywhere. 
You, you, you ! My heart sings it: 
1 know it, 1 feel it. And half the 
mystery of love lies in the fact that 
you yourself do not know it yet. 
You think that you look on blos- 
som, beyond you or anything but 
poetry. Did you never hear of the 
pear that lay “basking over the 
wall,” that needed but “ a touch to 
try, and off it came ” ? 1 know no 
more exasperating sight than the 
man who does not know his own 
blessedness. O blind eyes ! You 
are blessed, did you but know it. 
Dear blind eyes, how shall 1 kiss 
you into perfect vision, without a 
previous invitation ? And how 


Love-Letters 


41 


shall you invite the cure until it is 
no longer needed ? There lies the 
eternal deadlock, responsible for 
the million of surplus women. 
There is no help, saving in the ex- 
ercise of the most beautiful tact. 
O dearest, 1 cannot actually pro- 
pose to you ; there the outworn 
conventions still hold me. But 1 
can — and, oh, 1 do !— show you 
that if you propose you have no- 
thing to fear. Surely the fairies 
smiled on my birth that 1 have ever 
been called tactful. If hints will do 
it — how can one measure or de- 
scribe it ? Only now, with all due 
regard to my maiden modesty, 1 
think I may permit myself to send 
you the ghost of the shadow of a 
spirit-kiss. And it comes to you 
like the deposit with an agreement 


42 Another Englishwoman’s 

to purchase, with the certainty that 
there is much more to follow. 

1 have read this over again, won- 
dering if your eyes will ever fall on 
it, and this thought comes to me : 
there have been bad women in 
books, but did anybody ever mark 
a good woman down so cheap as I 
mark myself? 1 know one similar 
case. She was an Englishwoman 
too ; at least she said she was. 

Think often about me, for 1 think 
always of you — how to catch and 
how to keep you, and, incidentally, 
how to make a book out of you. 

Beloved: Those are not nearly 
all the letters in the basket. 1 have 
omitted any that were at all silly, 
though you would not perhaps 
guess from those 1 have sent that 1 


Love-Letters 


43 


could write anything silly. And 
there was a too-muchness about 
some that made them a little rich 
for an invalid’s appetite. So be 
very thankful for what you have 
got, prays your loving one. 


44 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter VIII 

Own Dearest: If, as 1 gather 
from your last, you are really better 
and have been well enough to read 
again, 1 wonder if you have noticed 
how my esteemed fellow-worker 
in this vineyard loves to give 
inanimate objects a personality. 

1 ask myself whether the trick can 
be acquired. 1 shall know before 
this letter has folded its wings and 
tucked itself into its envelope-nest. 

1 am inclined to think that it can, 
and that in fact it ought to be well 
within the scope of a good perform- 
ing horse. 

The house partially emptied itself 


Love-Letters 


45 


this morning. A bitterly busy ex- 
press threw a hasty smoking-com- 
partment round Arthur and ran off 
with him shortly after breakfast 
had got itself happily eaten. Yes- 
terday, you remember, was the 
day which had quite intended to 
bring you together. To-day also 
volunteered to keep Arthur for you, 
if that had been possible for you. 
Alas, it was not to be ! But to 
make up for this, comes your good 
news, with pink flags flying, and 
lifts me into cloud-land. (And 
now that 1 find that little trick can 
be acquired, indeed even too easily, 
1 will give it a rest ; it frightens me 
rather as a thing that might become 
chronic.) 

I cannot help feeling that 1 ought 
to have brought Arthur into these 


46 Another Englishwoman’s 

letters before. He must have 
slipped my memory. He was full 
of questions about you, which I 
answered coolly enough, as far as 1 
have the figures. And then sud- 
denly : “ What does he look like ?” 
I said you looked more like a Greek 
god than anything English or 
earthly. He said rather doubtingly 
that he had supposed so. Then, 
for he is the one I am most frank 
with ; “ Arthur ! ” 1 cried, took a 
long, strong pull at the chain, and 
up came your locket like a fish out 
of water. It has that photograph 
of you that was taken on the sands 
at Margate last year. 1 showed it, 
and he dropped flat on the floor. 
But all he would say was that it 
was not fair to judge from a photo- 
graph, but he thought you would 


Love-Letters 


47 


have looked better if you had not 
been dressed in a golf cap, a frock- 
coat, striped flannel trousers, and 
carpet slippers.* 1 am afraid Arthur 
has leanings towards the merely 
conventional, but you shall educate 
him to your level. 1 say this last 
jestingly ; for of course you have no 
level, and are the topmost goose- 
berry on the bush, sitting alone as 
the nightingale sings, while any 
language that tries to express you 
simply gives it up and goes home. 

My soul is gone a-dancing at the 
good news, and now until you come 
I cannot breathe quick enough. 
How strange that your ankle should 

* Query . — But would he dress like that ? I don’t 
seem to understand the position of these people. — 
Printer’s Reader. 

Answer .— more do I . Only three people do. It ’s 
part of the mystery. — Editor. 


48 Another Englishwoman’s 

arrange to get well on the very day 
that your mother goes off duty for a 
week ! And yet somehow it is 
not strange. 1 hope you will be 
kind to her, and see that she does 
not miss her train : 1 know how 
annoying it is to old people to miss 
their trains ; it is far preferable to 
have ten minutes to wait at the 
station. Pray give her my love, but 
not until the train has just started, 
for otherwise she might want to get 
out and come and see me about it. 
Everybody has always adored me, 
and 1 cannot understand how she 
resists the charm ; as a rule 1 am 
simply mesmeric with mothers. 
But no more on a painful subject 
when 1 can think that in a few hours 
1 shall — 1 am too shy to say. — 
Your own only. 


Love-Letters 


49 


Letter IX 

Oh, my stars and garters, here 
you come with your little lot ! Ever 
since the postman came 1 have been 
in our toppermost room, overwork- 
ing a poor little field-glass to see if 
I could detect you in the offing. 
Roberts (not of Kandahar) is going 
into the offing or thereabout to 
order one more chop and one more 
potato — you will stop to luncheon ? 
He will bring you this with a touch 
of the hat and partially suppressed 
squirts of laughter. What perfect 
manners that boy has got 1 1 have 
just screwed the glass up a little 
further, and have detected some- 


50 Another Englishwoman’s 

thing in the dim distance which is 
either you or a cow or a pantechni- 
con ; if I could kiss it 1 should know, 
but 1 must wait for you to tell me. 
Look out for me as much as you 
can without falling off the bicycle : 
don’t attempt to wave till you have 
more control of the machi ne, which 
you will get with practice, and then 
long may you wave ! If 1 am 
slightly incoherent, that is the re- 
sult of my excitement. Dearest, 
press this to your marble forehead 
and try to think it is me ; 1 shall be 
there soon afterwards. 


Love-Letters 


51 


Letter X 

Dearest; Here comes a letter to 
you from me flying in the opposite 
direction and firing my epistolary 
volleys as 1 retreat ; 1 hope none of 
them will miss. And 1 am so glad 
that the Uncle Grandmother had 
the brilliant idea of visiting the part 
of Italy that lies just beyond 
Baedeker, because from the point 
of view of the book it is all for the 
best. 1 have thought (indeed they 
were pressing me to take some- 
thing for it before I met you) that, 
left to myself, 1 should have be- 
come a writer of books— I can 
scarcely guess what sort, unless 
they had been a collection of spoof 


52 Another Englishwoman’s 

love-letters. And even now 1 can- 
not bear to waste good material or 
not to use it to the best advantage. 
More or less monotonous protesta- 
tions of love will not make a book 
by themselves. The public would 
get tired of the eternal cat-on-the- 
tiles. So in the letters which come 
next, love will have to take a seat 
at the back of the hall more or less, 
while 1 give you the experiences of 
a traveller, and some interesting in- 
formation about Arthur and the U. 
G., and bits of landscape, and other 
luxuries. You don’t mind, do you ? 
After all, you know my heart. As 
Dante— was it Dante ? — says some- 
where : 

"'lo sard il vostro amante, se voi volete essere 
la mia ; 

Tutta la mia vita sard ilvostrovalentino!** 


Love-Letters 


53 


Now I come to think of it, you do 
not know Italian, but indeed the 
meaning is of all languages and 
times. 

I say nothing about our Channel 
passage, but do not conjecture from 
that that we did not have a pass- 
age. Now 1 come to think of it, 
you had better not conjecture any- 
thing about it at all. Then days of 
travelling with eyes closed and 
thoughts of you and other things. 
At last through the sunset limits of 
Baedeker — always bathed in that 
strange crimson tinge — and so to 
our peaceful pavilion in Bosco San 
Giovanni. Here we are to rest for 
a little while, though I fear the 
strenuous and funereal U. G. will 
insist on a flying visit to Verde Ken- 
sale to-morrow. You know her 


54 Another Englishwoman’s 

quaint ways. I shall be sure to let 
you know the order of our going. 

Yours truly, — which phrase is a 
change and a cold bath, both very 
refreshing things after a long jour- 
ney. Write often. 


Love-Letters 


55 


Letter XI 

Dearest : Even as I predicted, 
the Uncle Grandmother had her 
own way, and took us all off to 
Verde Kensale after breakfast this 
morning. The way proved longer 
than we had expected, and we 
were glad to rest in the enclosure. 
It does not seem to me to be alto- 
gether the place to spend a happy 
day ; yet the natives gather there, 
less perhaps from a desire for quiet 
meditation than from a strange 
processional instinct. The general 
style of the tombs may, 1 think, be 
traced to the Via Eustonia. If you 
love me as much as 1 know you do, 


56 Another Englishwoman’s 

I do not want you to bury me in 
that enclosure, nor anywhere else 
until 1 am quite dead. There is 
another enclosure somewhat simi- 
lar in the neighbourhood of Corte 
di Conte, and, so far, 1 have, with 
a kind of playful treachery, kept 
the U. G. from all knowledge of it. 
Dear charnelly-minded U. G. ! It 
is as difficult to get her past a ceme- 
tery as to get a drunkard past a 
public-house. Another funny little 
trait in her is the way she ignores 
any but the conventional and de- 
sirable situation ; the things which 
she would like, and which, nor- 
mally, would be, are for her the 
things which are — even in the 
spiteful face of facts to the con- 
trary. That is, perhaps, why she 
writes so frequently to your dear 


Love-Letters 


57 


mother — and I do not know why 
your dear mother never replies ; 
but I have an instinctive feeling 
that either one of them ought to 
stop or that the other ought to be- 
gin. But enough of a subject of 
which one cannot speak yet with 
any real pleasure. 

Bosco San Giovanni is adorable, 
and I wish that we were to remain 
here for a much longer time. But, 
as the U. G. says, caretakers can- 
not be choosers. The caretaker 
system of making a holiday has, of 
course, much to be said for it from 
the point of economy, and it gives 
one a curious insight into the inte- 
rior life of the people of the coun- 
try ; but, naturally, one has to 
move out when the family comes 
back, and that cramps one’s plans 


58 Another Englishwoman’s 

rather. Many artists live here ; also 
artistes. The architecture is pleas- 
antly irregular. Some of the houses 
have got lattice-work on them, and 
some of them have got mortgages, 
but all of them have got some- 
thing. And wherever there is a 
copper door-knocker, you may be 
quite sure that there is a great soul 
somewhere on the other side of it. 
Arthur, who shares my enthusiasm, 
is a marked success with his beau- 
tiful brown curls. Bright -eyed 
maidens, as he passes them in the 
streets, exclaim shyly : Ecco cap- 
pellil Ecco cappelU!” and he 
smiles with conscious pride. Yet 
there are some people who think 
he ought to have it cut. The 
gondolas are all in full song just 
now, and wonderfully tame ; they 


Love-Letters 


59 


will perch on your wrist, and in 
exchange for the crumbs from 
your intermezzo, go through their 
charming repertoire ; but they 
won’t wash clothes. Dear U. G. 
delights in feeding them. They 
flock all around her and all about 
her and all over her. She does not 
mind ; she says : '' Lasdateli ve- 
nire tutti quanta” It is an old 
proverbial saying here. 

To-day nothing would suit Arthur 
but that we two, he and 1, should 
tramp off together to Cespuglio di 
Pastore, where the Condotto di 
Due Soldi comes to so sad an end. 
Do you know the beautiful old 
legend of the Condotto ? It is said 
that once upon a time it was 
thought to be the cause of strange 
vibrations in the houses built over 


6o Another Englishwoman’s 

it. But these vibrations were really 
due to the prolonged sobbing of 
six governesses who had been 
reading An Englishwoman’s Love- 
Letters. And these six governesses 
came forward and confessed, and 
so the Condotto di Due Soldi was 
saved. Perhaps it is not quite true, 
but that is the old story, and 1 
like to believe it. Well, trusting to 
Arthur’s cross-country instinct, we 
missed our way, and a short cut 
became a long round, and ultimate- 
ly we turned up at Croce di Re. 
We must have gone a dozen miles 
or so. Fortunately, Arthur had 
slipped a couple of confetti into his 
pocket before starting, and when we 
got hungry we munched these as 
we went along. Also a russet- 
skinned Italian by the roadside sold 


Love-Letters 


6i 


us tiny glasses of some cooling 
sweetmeat ridiculously cheap. So 
we did not do very badly, and 1 feel 
more than ever that this is the real 
Italy, if the tourists of the beaten 
routes did but know of it. 

But now I am very tired, and 
must cosify myself into my bye-bye 
and dream that my adored one has 
been made king of the world. 

Your obedient servant. 


62 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XII 

Dearest : This morning I was 
awakened by the plash of rain on 
the windows, and thought this 
would have to be a day of letter- 
writing and small occupations with 
the U. G., but the sun and the 
early coffee arrived together, both 
hot, and so it came to pass that we 
walked out into a world washed 
clean and dried and set to music. 
Of that there is even more than 
enough ; at least 1 do not think 
that 1 wish to hear il mendicante 
distratto any more. But some of 
these songs, sung by quite simple 
peasants, are wonderfully beautiful 


Love-Letters 


63 


in thought and feeling. One line 
especially haunts me, from a song 
half forgotten now though not old 
— ^these born artists tire so soon of 
their playthings ! Here it is: Tutto 
il mio desiderio—\ heard a great 
black-eyed girl singing it as she 
stood in the sunlight — Tutto il mio 
desiderio sarebbe un pei^^etto delta 
cima. It means, since you do not 
know Italian, that all she wanted 
was quite a little thing, but that it 
had to come from the summit. No 
common greed there, but an artist’s 
sense of value, and an aspiration 
flaming upwards. Well, dear U. 
G. did six churches with church- 
yards attached, tired herself out, 
and said it was me, and 1 cried ; 
and then we found a little shop, 
almost English in appearance. 


64 Another Englishwoman’s 

where they sold milk and buns. A 
creamatorium the U. G. called it, 
which Arthur says is proleptic, and 
1 feel sure is inaccurate. But there 
we comforted ourselves, and but 
for your absence all would be well. 

Your letters are my soul’s hair- 
restorer. Benjie* brings them up 
to me in his mouth every morning, 
and taps at the door with his tail. 
He has dropped one only once, and 
that was when he had a cough. 
Your last was especially dear, and 
full of trusting love. No, 1 am not 
angry with your mother for saying 
that. 1 remember always that in the 

*Querjf . — Surely this must be wrong, is n’t it ? She 
said in a previous letter that Benjie had gone mad. — 
Printer’s Reader. 

Answer . — Quite all right. The other Englishwoman 
had one cat with several names to it ; why should not 
this Englishwoman have one name with several dogs to 
it Editor. 


Love-Letters 


65 


days when she was responsible she 
was partly responsible for you. If 
she chooses to believe that we have 
never got any nearer to Italy than 
St. John’s Wood, N. W., she must 
believe it. It is the more sweet of 
you to have no suspicions at all; the 
love that laughs at the evidence 
of stamps and post-marks, that is 
the love heroic. No other would 
ever have satisfied me. Continue, 
please, to send your letters to my 
home address, and the servants 
will forward them. This is simply 
because your first precious letters 
had a penny stamp on them, and 1 
want the others to be Just the same; 
if 1 got a letter from you with a 
twopenny-halfpenny stamp on it, 1 
should think that you had changed 
towards me in some way. This is 


66 Another Englishwoman’s 

purely fond, as our forefathers 
would have said, and 1 say in a 
different sense, but do not laugh at 
me. Only believe in me, and 1 will 
give you as much to believe as 1 
can. Who was it said that sus- 
picions are like bats, useless with- 
out a good handle ? 

We have been to see the Arco di 
Marmore, which looks to me as if 
it had been put there because it was 
too good to throw away, as I believe 
was the case. And — did I tell you ? 
— on Saturday we had almost an 
adventure. Arthur took me to 
Cespuglio di Pastore, where the 
Condotto di Due Soldi starts so 
gloriously on its career. There is a 
beautiful old legend about the Con- 
dotto and the six governesses. 1 
must tell you it one of these days. 


Love-Letters 


67 


At least, Arthur meant to take me 
there. But he trusted to the lie of 
the land — which on the face of it 
seems a silly thing to do — and we 
turned up at Croce di Re, and must 
have covered something like a score 
of miles before we got home.* 

The T s are always here when 

they are wanted, and always go 
when they are not. Really, they 
are most tactful. If one says that 
one is dead tired, and that, after 
all, there are times when one would 
prefer to be alone, though it is but 

* Query. — But this won’t do. We had it all in the 
last letter, only put differently. Shall I strike it out ? — 
Printer’s Reader. 

Answer. — Hush ! Don’t say anything. It ’s an im- 
itation of an ordinary blunder to be found in genuine 
letters ; it ’s done on purpose. — Editor. 

Query. — But if it had been a genuine blunder in 
genuine letters, would not you as the editor have 
omitted it as a needless repetition ? — Printer’s Reader. 

Answer — Oh, don’t argue ! — Editor. 


68 Another Englishwoman’s 

the ghost of a shadow of a hint, 
they seem to understand at once 
that they are not being pressed to 
stay to tea. We have the P’s and 
Q’s also, but we never mind them. . 
To-morrow we go on to a villa at 
Capella Bianca ; new experiences 
crowd in upon me so fast that to 
capture them all in blue-black ink is 
like doing up the buttons of one’s 
waterproof when one is running in 
a high wind. You will find me, by 
the way, surprisingly little tanned 
by the Italian sun ; but this 1 attri- 
bute entirely to my constant use of 
(this space to let for advertising 
purposes), which renders the skin 
beautifully soft and white, and pre- 
serves one’s complexion even under 
the most trying circumstances. 

What stores of joy 1 am laying up 


Love-Letters 


69 


against our meeting ! If you could 
get a day off you might join us 
here. In the meantime, here are 
my kisses ; please take one, as they 
say in shops. Your ark-strayed 
Dove, since you call me so. 


70 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XIII 

Dearest : Capella Bianca is all 
around me as 1 write, with its 
crowded streets, its distinctive cos- 
tumes, its grey atmosphere. Skill 
to paint me, or you, a picture in 
pen-and-ink, 1 never had. But the 
note is restlessness. The very 
architecture seems to have sung it- 
self out and died, and produced all 
this in a kind of posthumous tu- 
mult. The language spoken is 
itself a kind of contortion. On the 
many activities of the place the 
curtain seems never to be rung 
down. It all suits the untiring U. 
G. better perhaps than it suits me. 


Love-Letters 


71 

Arthur is away for the present, 
staying with a friend in Festa di 
Maggio, where we are to rejoin him 
soon. In the meantime the U. G. 
has me all to herself, and naturally 
finds that a treat. Indeed she needs 
little else. She did call at the great 
hospital here the other day, in the 
hope that she might be permitted 
to see a few operations performed, 
but she seems to have been re- 
pulsed ; she says that the young 
man was almost rude to her. Now 
she sits at the table where I write, 
contentedly gumming some newly 
acquired specimens into her collec- 
tion of memorial cards. Arthur’s 
secret intention in his absence from 
us is, I know, “fare le sale,” as 
they say here. Strange that both 
my dearest men should have that 


72 Another Englishwoman’s 

touch of the “rorty young dog” 
in them. 

For excursions farther afield we 
take a most curious shandrydan, 
with a driver of whom we are 
making quite a pet. “Jehu,” 1 call 
him — is n’t it bright and original ? 
His vehicle is of a type common 
here, so wonderfully constructed 
that if the horse falls, which it does 
frequently, the passengers are at 
once shot out into the road. Jehu 
is particularly smart, and the shine 
of his hat seems to shout, “Che 
pre:{:{p me?” io the rest of his con- 
fraternity as he drives us along. 
He says such quaint, strong, en- 
sanguined things — but of course 
you do not know Italian. Fortun- 
ately for us, his horse is not too 
devotional. The longest drive that 


Love-Letters 


73 


we have been yet was to a place 
near the Via Fornajo, where the U. 
G. wished to see the Camera d’ Or- 
rore. But you do not want guide- 
book stuff from me. 

We are going to have a little jest 
with Jehu before we leave here. 
It is all arranged and planned. We 
are going to let him drive us about 
to different places the whole of one 
day, and finish up at a shop with a 
side entrance into another street. 
Then while he waits at the one 
door we shall go out at the other. 
Cannot you imagine how he will 
grin and show his white teeth when 
he sees the fun we have had with 
him ? But he may be a little an- 
noyed too, the joke being rather 
against him. You would hardly 
suspect the U. G. of such playful- 


74 Another Englishwoman’s 

ness, would you? And certainly 
her tastes as a general rule do tend 
toward solemnity. But already 
she has indulged in one witticism 
with this same Jehu : she paid him 
the other day with a stumerina, 
and he accepted it. A stumerina, 
1 must tell you, is a coin which is 
not exactly what you might sup- 
pose; if a cabman finds out that 
you have tried to pay him with 
one, he often gets quite silly. 1 do 
grow so confused with this Italian 
coinage, by the way. The worst 
of making a pet of one’s driver is 
that one is tempted — and 1 confess 
that we often yield to the tempta- 
tion — to treat him with more gen- 
erosity than one would generally 
show in what is, after all, a busi- 
ness matter. 1 must write and tell 


Love-Letters 


75 


you how our last little jest with 
Jehu succeeds. 

Is this more about Jehu than you 
care to hear? Of myself 1 have 
nothing to say but that 1 am as 
happy as a thing can be that is 
published in instalments, and looks 
to a blissful ending. Yet if we 
were not parted there would be no 
book, for there would be no letters. 
Would it be of any practical use 
to send your mother messages ? 
If it would expedite matters at all, 
then 1 need hardly say that my 
love is waiting like corked soda- 
water to fly towards her. If not, 
you may leave the cork in. Regard 
my message to her as a blank 
cheque for you to fill in as you 
think best. If the bee despises the 
flower, then relatively to the bee 


76 Another Englishwoman’s 

the flower is honeyless. 1 wonder 
if you have any idea at all how re- 
markably easy it is to write like 
this : and yet you say that my 
metaphorical style dazzles you. 
Bless you, dearest ! Your own 
Copyright in Great Britain, Amer- 
ica, and the Continent. 

Dearest : Postscripts, as you 
have noticed, 1 never do write. 
This is really another letter or let- 
terlet — a little baby hanging on to 
the skirts of its big sister and ask- 
ing to share its envelope-crib. It is 
only to say that 1 do not think 
much of Michael Angelo, and that 
he would be sorry if he knew. It 
had just occurred to me that 1 
ought to give you a little art. 
Behold it ! 


Love-Letters 


77 


Letter XIV 

Dearest : Our programme with 
Jehu was not carried out quite as 
we had planned it, because he had 
got another driver to watch the 
side entrance of the shop for him. 
These Italian drivers are a sus- 
picious class. Of course the U. G. 
said what could be said, — that we 
were just looking for him, and so 
on, — but it was not a complete suc- 
cess. 1 think 1 should have left it 
at that. 1 was sure all along that 
it was a mistake on her part to 
offer him a new English farthing 
and tell him that he could keep the 
change. It was so evident that he 


78 Another Englishwoman’s 

was not in the mood for that kind 
of thing. However, it was done, 
and he got very rude, and threat- 
ened to call the “ Rame"; he said 
we were bilkerinas, and he would 
never drive us again. That is the 
worst of making a pet of one of 
these men ; he gets spoiled, and it 
is all so much kindness thrown 
away. 

I think 1 must have the “ snaps,” 
whether because of Jehu, or be- 
cause 1 have no letter from you 
again to-day, I know not. But 
the other Englishwoman had the 
“snaps,” and I am not going to be 
left behind — which once said, 1 
will be quite good and meek again, 
and smooth my plumage. Bother 
you 1 could not wish to do ; only a 
little anxiety will haunt me that 


Love-Letters 


79 


you may have broken a few more 
of your ankles. And when your let- 
ter comes, it shall show me that 
this is foolish. So now to pleas- 
anter things. 

We are now in Festa di Maggio, 
and the guests of Arthur’s friend, 
Mr. Smith, who is most attentive 
and cordial. (The other English- 
woman would have called him Mr. 

S , and perhaps that would 

look more as if one were being dis- 
creet and mysterious, but after all 
the name Smith is not an absolute 
identification.) Of Festa di Maggio 
itself 1 will say very little, because 
when our happy days come 1 think 
we must live here. Think of a 
beautiful green stretch, through 
which a river serpentines. As a 
rule one misses here the comforting 


8o Another Englishwoman’s 

green of an English landscape. 
And to that you must add most 
beautiful flowers, somewhat primly 
planted, and great trees and formal 
walks. Well, there is a lane which 
overlooks this place. It is only a 
lane, but you must not despise it ; 
there are houses in it, some of them 
quite big enough for two lovers to 
sit and hold hands. (Five minutes 
here while 1 kiss you.) Thanks ; 
right away.* 

Now let me hasten to tell you 
before 1 promise not to say a word 

* — These people have just come from a care- 

taking job in Whitechapel, where they seem to have 
filled in their time with tricking a cabman ; now they 
are honoured guests in Mayfair, and she talks of taking 
a house in Park Lane. Can you explain it ? — Printer’s 
Reader. 

Answer. — What ’s all this about Whitechapel and 
Mayfair ? The girl said distinctly she was in Italy, and 
she ought to know. You seem to me to make diffi- 
culties for the love of it. — Editor. 


Love-Letters 8i 

— a method which is strictly hon- 
ourable and yet satisfies the human 
passion for handing things on. 
Arthur has an affair of the heart, 
which is of course inexpressibly 
comic. That sort of thing is all very 
well for you and me, who can make 
it into a tender, lily-scented poem, 
but it is too absurd in anybody else. 
They write letters to one another, 
and he carries her likeness about 
with him in a locket. Poor Arthur ! 
I am so fond of him, that in his case 
1 refuse to see any but the ridiculous 
side. But there is another side as 
well ; such things are, as it were, an 
infringement of our copyright. We 
do not want a lot of amateurs 
crowding in ; they spoil everything. 
I do not think any other love-affair 

but ours ought to be allowed, until 

6 


82 Another Englishwoman’s 

ours is quite finished and we are 
happily married. The lady of his 
choice, by the way, is a native of 
Capella Bianca, and speaks with the 
fascinating accent of that country ; 
but she has few if any metaphors, 
and 1 should say that her letters 
would be quite uninteresting. 

Last night Mr. Smith took me 
to see the marvellous excavations 
which are always going on in the 
Via della Flotta, a street which con- 
tinues itself into the Piaggia. The 
excavations look very picturesque 
by night, but seem to be strangely 
unpopular with the natives — prob- 
ably in consequence of some local 
superstition . W e came back by the 
river, and perhaps the damp air and 
the mists of the river were respon- 
sible for the cold which at present 


Love-Letters 


83 


afflicts me. It is a cold id by doze, 
if for once 1 may spell as I pro- 
nounce. But you need not be 
nervous about it, for Mr. Smith 
takes the greatest possible care of 
me. He is quite a sympathetic per- 
son, and seems to know all my 
tastes as if by instinct. He has 
faults, of course. He is far too ex- 
travagant, especially in the matter 
of presents, and I think he fre- 
quently does things without con- 
sulting his mother ; one has only to 
look at you to see that you would 
never do that. 

Some words in my last letter from 
you made my heart leap. It is 
where you say that you may be tak- 
ing a holiday yourself, and that you 
would like to join us in Italy. That 
would be rapture ; perhaps you 


84 Another Englishwoman’s 

could persuade your mother to 
come too. I hardly dare to think 
about it. But 1 must tell you that it 
is possible that before you can take 
your holiday, the dear Uncle Grand- 
mother, who feels the heat here 
very much, will wish to return to 
England. In that case a week at 
Hunstanton would be pleasant and 
at the same time more economical. 
Can you shrimp ? 1 have heard that 
when one has shrump once one 
never forgets it. Of this 1 would 
say more but that Mr. Smith’s 
carriage is here, and he is waiting to 
take me out. A happiness so full 
and rich as mine can spare some- 
thing for the happiness of others. 
And 1 shall be happier still if your 
beautiful holiday dream only comes 
true. 


Love-Letters 


85 


One hasty line more to say that 
you must not think that 1 was com- 
paring you with Mr. Smith at all ; 1 
could not be as absurd as that. 1 am 
always seeing points of difference 
between you. You, for instance, 
have a far finer control of your tem- 
per, though perhaps he has more 
control of his mother’s temper. 

Here is love — cut where you like. 
And now good-bye for a little while, 
and 1 pray it may be the littlest 
possible. My Sole Lessee. 


86 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XV 

Beloved : If two days slip by — 
a contingency which occurs with 
some frequency in lives of the nor- 
mal length — I don’t know where 1 
am. Things get so crowded in 
such a short book — I mean in such 
a short space of time. I cannot for 
the life of me think what 1 said in 
my last letter, or why 1 said it, and 
I don’t know where to begin this 
letter. 1 ’m just all anyhow. 
Things have been so rapid here. 
Mr. Smith likes rapidity, and as he 
is our host and Arthur’s friend, one 
tries one’s best to keep up. 

So 1 turn to your letter and your 


Love-Letters 


87 


great news. A truce till February ? 
that is well, for it completely knocks 
on the head any consanguinity the- 
ory ; at any rate it should do, but 
one never knows. And as the 
struggle then can end in only one 
way, if these letters are to have as 
much pathos in them as will lie on 
a threepenny-piece, it is hardly 
worth while to make any overt 
signs of preparation for any other 
contingency. You do not tell me 
what your mother’s objection to 
me is, and of course I do not ask. 
That is so beautifully natural, is it 
not ? No girl would ever dream of 
asking why her engagement was 
to be broken off. That would be 
simply morbid curiosity. After all, 
what business is it others ? I will 
think about it and let you know 


88 Another Englishwoman’s 

my opinion later. 1 remember that 
when she came to see me she said 
that 1 was not old enough. But 1 
do not think it was seriously said 
— at least so far as you and 1 are 
concerned : she meant old enough 
for domestic service. 

To answer business-like to your 
questions first : we leave here on 
the 46th, or some earlier or later 
day, and we shall probably re- 
turn via Marseilles, and Yokohama, 
changing into the Orient Express at 
Clapham Junction. As at present 
arranged, the date of our arrival 
will depend very much on when 
we start ; but if we decide other- 
wise, 1 shall be sure to let you 
know. 1 am tempted to hope that 
the “ truce ” sets you free now, and 
then you could meet us here after 


Love-Letters 


89 


all ; but 1 think the Hunstanton 
idea is the better one. You see, I 
am not quite sure that you would 
like Mr. Smith, and, as 1 told you, 
the Uncle Grandmother feels the 
heat ; so now you know the differ- 
ence between the U. G. and a ped- 
icure. 1 wonder if we shall all meet 
and travel down together 1 If 1 am 
to have that great happiness, I must 
tell you something about trains 
which shows what an exquisitely 
sensitive nature I Ve got. When 
I was quite a little child I was very 
sorry for trains, because they went 
so far, and nobody patted them or 
gave them sugar. Even now I have 
something of the same kind of 
feeling. Why should one despise 
machines because they are only 
machines ? When a little party of 


90 Another Englishwoman’s 

people come on to a platform and 
all get into the same carriage, 1 am 
sure that the rest of the train feels 
rather wounded and neglected. So 
when I am travelling 1 always per- 
suade those who are with me to 
distribute themselves as much as 
possible. If you get the tickets, 
please take a first-class for myself, 
a second-class for the U. G., a third 
for Arthur, and a horse-box for your 
dear self. Can it really be that in 
a short time 1 shall have the bliss 
of being drawn by the same engine 
as you ! Oh, 1 must not hope too 
much 1 

Never mind now about the poor 
letter which went astray ; there is 
enough happification in your last to 
make up for the disappointment. 
But 1 will own now, what 1 would 


Love-Letters 


91 


not let myself say before, that I had 
wondered whether your dear mam- 
ma had caught you at it, and had 
taken away the ink and paper, and 
spanked your hands. And now for 
sheer joy I think 1 must do some 
mad thing. I have had an idea that 
I should like to dress in the costume 
that the peasants wear here. Would 
you like me a little in a rich 
brown risotto, with a crimson 
felucca on my head ? If 1 were to 
dress like that in London, it would 
be almost mad enough for me. Mr. 
Smith says it would be charming ; 
I think he must be tired of looking 
at me, for he does it so much. 
That is one of his faults, and 1 
scarcely think you and he would get 
on well together ; but he has cer- 
tainly been most kind and attentive. 


92 Another Englishwoman’s 

He has nice eyes. Is that as much 
as you want to hear about Mr. 
Smith ? 

1 have quite finished with my 
cold now, and the U. G. has it. 
Yesterday she was very depressed, 
and spent her time chiefly in writ- 
ing her own epitaph, beginning : 

‘‘How oft life’s strongest flight is 
Cut short by laryngitis ! ” 

But this morning she has just break- 
fasted on a couple of poached eggs 
and part of a clinical thermometer — 
I always knew that accident would 
happen sooner or later— and seems 
much more cheerful. 

How are you ? Not overworking 
that poor ankle, I hope ? Reading ? 
Thinking about me ? It was nice of 
you to ride over to see Uncle N. 
We never take him with us on these 


Love-Letters 


93 


holiday visits, but the servants have 
instructions to see that he is regular- 
ly fed. And now how am 1 to send 
you my love, for all the postmen in 
the world could not carry it? It 
started by being bigger than possi- 
ble, and it has gone on steadily ever 
since. You did not know there was 
so much, did you ? You just pulled 
the string, and it came all over you, 
and now you are powerless to stop 
it. Your own love shower-bath. 


94 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XVI 

Dearest : I think you must al- 
most be able to hear the thudding of 
my heart, so loudly does it cry its 
joy to you. Your welcome letter 
has reached me, and the bliss of it 
ties me into nautical and undoable 
knots. All that you have arranged 
is perfect and fits us admirably. So 
to-day sees me in such a whirl of 
packing and making ready that I 
am forced to cling to my literary 
style with both hands. Forthe U. 
G. roams about with a covetous 
eye fixed on any unpacked thing, 
and a big trunk has already snapped 
its hungry mouth on all my note- 
paper except this one sheet. 


Love-Letters 


95 


We leave to-morrow. To think 
so few days lie between us now ! 
Would that 1 might rush towards 
you as swiftly as my thoughts do, 
and seem ever to have done ! But 
instead must come the long, slow 
journey, with all the snowy Alps 
nodding an affectionate farewell to 
me, and the deep blue lakes waving 
their hands, and every crevasse sob- 
ing its good-bye. * And then — oh, 
then ! 

1 wonder if Liverpool Street Sta- 
tion is feeling particularly happy. 
1 think it must. 1 at least always 
feel so glad that anybody ’s glad. 
But Liverpool Street may have got 
hardened with a long experience of 

* — But would the scenery behave like that ? 

— Printer’s Reader. 

Answer . — Go it ! Spoil the most poetical passage in 
the book. — E ditor. 


96 Another Englishwoman’s 

many reunions. Hunstanton must 
have flags waving in the secret 
heart of it, just as to-day the flags 
are waving in the heart of me — yes, 
and the band playing, and the bal- 
loon going up, and so much more 
that 1 can never express ! So 

Alas ! the envious U. G. has just 
pounced on my literary style, be- 
cause she wanted something soft to 
pack a hat in. And so if 1 am to 
fill this sheet it must be after this 
manner ; 

And was he a most ’stremely des- 
olate person while she was away ? 
Wazzums ? What shall she do for 
him to comfort him ? Wrap him 
all up in pink rose-leaves and kiss 
him blue ? There then, don’t cry 
any more. 1 am your little toy- 
duck, and you are the most power- 


Love-Letters 


97 


ful-strong big magnet, and 1 come 
swimmy-swimmy to you as fast as 
ever and ever. And then both go 
off to hunt weeny shrimplets in 
pools where there are n’t any, and 
get two little lost persons that come 
home late to tea and make the U. 
G. say swear words. Say yum- 
yum three times slowly, please. 
Your most pussiest little Puss- 
kitten. 


98 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XVII 

Beloved : See what an unfortun- 
ate effect your “ rorty young dog” 
episode has had on me. When 1 
read it I had no feeling of uneasi- 
ness of any kind. However, as 1 
went to bed, the U. G. said to me : 
“You don’t look well, child. 1 
believe you are sickening for some- 
thing.” Sure enough, that night 1 
could get but little sleep, being in a 
muzzy-brained state when every- 
thing seemed to rhyme with every- 
thing else. Six hours later the 
household knew the worst : 1 had 
turned your episode into our beauti- 
ful extra-cream home-made poetry. 


Love-Letters 


99 


I feel that I want to know more 
about that farmer’s son. Strange 
that he should have warned you 
about the danger of using firearms 
in the direction of the moon, and 
after all these years should have 
shot the moon himself ! That 
seems to round the whole thing 
off and make it a literary work like 
the other lady’s love-letters. It 
was clever of him to remove the 
furniture on his own carts ; that 
must have made it so much more 
difficult to trace him. 1 should 
imagine that his name will be re- 
membered, among that part of the 
countryside which gave him credit, 
for many a long day. 1 would like 
to go there with you some day, and 
standing on Twyloch hill picture to 
myself how he must have smiled. 

LofC. 


loo Another Englishwoman’s 

This is the first time I have come 
before your eyes as anything but a 
letter-writer with six months’ char- 
acter from her last place. I even 
doubted whether you would care to 
have so much about yourself, es- 
pecially as the poem may seem to 
make much of what was after all 
an incident of no particular import- 
ance. But then everything that 
concerns you is important ; and the 
stream of sanctifying oil that all my 
previous letters have poured upon 
your head must have prepared you 
to have that importance exaggerat- 
ed. 1 am most bitterly jealous of 
those days before you came under 
my benign influence ; 1 want to 

keep all their stolen-gooseberry 
flavour to myself. Could you have 
fallen in love with me at the age of 


Love-Letters 


lOI 


eight ? When I remember how 
much persuasion on my part it took 
to make you understand that you 
had fallen in love with me twenty 
years later, 1 am inclined to doubt 
it. Do not think that 1 reproach 
you, or could, whose boots 1 kiss 
eternally. Sometimes 1 have the 
idea that 1 shall have to pay the 
price of my singularly whole-souled 
devotion, and in a very curious 
way. 1 shall meet a real English- 
woman, not the one who wrote 
those other letters, and with some 
mad notion of championing her sex, 
some conventional belief that they 
are not exclusively wriggling worms 
inviting men to tread on them, she 
will tear me into small pieces and 
throw me away. 1 suppose 1 am a 
worm : yet the worm hooks its 


102 Another Englishwoman’s 

fish, does it not? 1 came before 
you and you took your hook ; Oh, 
never take it again. 

I want to know more about your 
boyhood, even the sad parts. Tell 
me if they ever spanked you and 
how much it hurt. 1 have always 
thought that you cannot have been 
spanked much when you were 
young ; spankings come from dis- 
obedience and 1 think you must 
have been one of those who cannot 
disobey anybody. 1 do respect you 
for that. Now Arthur’s friend, Mr. 
Smith, was quite different, and 
1 am afraid that he has caused 
a great deal of needless trou- 
ble. The longer 1 live the more 
1 am convinced that looks are 
not everything. But that has 
nothing to do with what we are 


Love-Letters 103 

talking about. Silly of me to men- 
tion it. 

Dearest bird, it was to me that 
you were winging your regular slow 
flight through all those years, 
though you took some time to 
realise it, and your mother does not 
seem to have quite taken it in yet. 
Mr. Smith told me — but wait, you 
said at Hunstanton that you were 
tired of hearing me quote Mr. 
Smith. 

So 1 will say no more than that 
this letter is really up to standard 
length, if you include the poem 
which is given away with it. If 
you like our prose, try our poetry. 
We have a large assortment, and it 
is our endeavour to give satisfaction. 
O my bird, 1 am ever your waiting 
nest 1 


104 Another Englishwoman’s 

{Enclosure.) 

My brother and I were down in Wales, 
And bored the Welshmen with our tales ; 
To which you partially may trace 
The melancholy of their race. 

He was eleven and I was eight — 

Plain facts in plainest terms 1 state. 

Amid our audience was one 
We liked the best, the farmer’s son. 

He had the mightiest arms and legs. 

And also sold our mother eggs. 

And stimulated business thus — 

By showing great regard for us. 

Now one night as we pulled his hair 
(A thing that might make some men swear. 
But from a placid Welshman wins 
A mere “ Whtdmnsllynnsns ! ”) 

1 told my exploits of the day ; 

1 ’d wandered far and blazed away, 

And with my small ingenious gun 
Had aimed at birds and not hit one. 

‘'Lucky for you this afternoon 

You did not happen to hit the moon ! ” 

Thus said the farmer’s son to me. 

And 1 : “ What matter if 1 hit she t ” 


Love-Letters 


105 


(Unto my tender age refer 
That little slip of she ” for her.”) 

Quoth he: ‘‘The moon would splinter 
straight, 

And fall in lumps of monstrous weight. 
Twyloch hill would be levelled down, 

And flat as a flounder be Twyloch town. 
And what on earth would you do,” he 
said, 

“ If one lump fell on your little fat head ? 
But there ” — he noted my alarm — 

“ Eat more eggs and you ’ll take no harm.” 

Now 1 hear after years gone past 
How he himself shot the moon at last ; 
Sloped on a stormy night in May, 

Sloped with a year’s back-rent to pay. 

Out with his chattels and goods went he : 
None knows what his address may be. 

Only, 1 think, there seek him still 
In Twyloch town and on Twyloch hill, 

A Twyloch landlord, a Shyloch baker. 
Butcher, and tailor, and candlestick-maker. 


io6 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XVIII 

Dearest : Do you remember 
that the other Englishwoman said 
on one occasion that she had been 
“sitting up to see eclipses”? 
Those were her very words and 
they puzzle me a good deal. 1 am 
told that not more than one eclipse 
is visible in one night. Yet she did 
it, and did it on cocoa. If the cocoa 
had not been cocoa, 1 could under- 
stand her having seen two eclipses. 
However, now 1 come to think 
about it, she says that she did not 
see much because the sky was 
“piebald.” 

Well, last night the sky was a 


Love-Letters 107 

bright bay with black points, and I 
sat up to see a piece of one eclipse. 
(You will observe that if 1 follow my 
dear pap-hearted model 1 do so 
with modesty and at a respectful 
distance.) You did tell me it was 
naughty. But it is only while you 
are awake that I am your trained 
obedient Pomeranian ; once your 
conscious self goes 1 am off on the 
scamper. A dear friend of mine had 
a somewhat similar experience. 
She loved with the totally unen- 
couraged devotion of a great soul 
a man who had a hard-working 
steam-roller of a mother, much on 
the lines of your own sweet 
mamma. The mother was entirely 
opposed to the marriage, and she 
was strongly supported in her 
opposition by the son. While the 


io8 Another Englishwoman’s 

man was conscious, my dear friend 
found it impossible to make him 
obey her. But one day when he 
had severe toothache, under the 
guise of taking him to a dentist’s 
to have it out, she lured him to a 
registry office. Gas was adminis- 
tered, and when the man came to 
he was legally married. He then 
prosecuted my friend for obtaining 
a husband under false pretences. 
She pleaded kleptomania, minority, 
gambling transaction, and contrib- 
utory negligence ; she also counter- 
claimed for the anjesthetist’s fee, 
and paid three-and-six into court. 
She got off under the First Offend- 
er’s Act, but the man got off, too, 
the marriage being annulled. Since 
then anesthetics have been forbid- 
den in registry offices and a registrar 


Love-Letters 109 

was dismissed only the other day 
for having in his possession cough- 
drops, which were shown to con- 
tain paregoric. Silly story, isn’t it ? 

Now that 1 come to think it over 
1 can find quite a number of reasons 
why 1 did not see very much of my 
eclipse. For one thing, 1 had the 
blinds down and the curtains drawn 
across them, because it made the 
room so much more cosy. Also as 
1 was sustaining myself with sad- 
dening and somnolent buns 1 not 
unnaturally fell asleep. Then again 
the moon could not be seen from 
that side of the house, and as a 
matter of fact there was no eclipse 
that night. There were several 
reasons besides, but the few that 1 
have given amount, I think, to an 
adequate explanation. However, 


I TO Another Englishwoman’s 

when the dawn came, 1 happened 
to awake, and took a peep out. It 
was so beautiful ! The worms woke 
at half-past four, and the early birds 
shortly afterwards. Then out from 
the shrubbery came Fido with a 
gleeful new-day scamper. As he 
passed my window he paused and 
lifted up his near front paw as if in 
benediction. It is so comforting to 
think that even when one is asleep 
one’s animals show these signs of 
affection ! 1 am sure he thought I 
was asleep, for he went so quietly 
as if not to wake me ; he never 
barked once.* 

* — You said as distinctly as possible that all 

her dogs had the same name, Benjie. How do you 
account for this ? — Printer’s Reader. 

Answer. — It ’s quite simple. Fido was a cat. — 
Editor. 

Objection . — But she says he never barked. — Printer’s 
Reader. 

Answer. — That ’s right. Cats never do. — Editor. 


Love-Letters 


III 


Mr. Smith said he had seen the 
dawn quite a number of times. 
Have you ? Sometimes I think 
that Roberts must have made an 
error in the way he spoke of you, 
and have confused you with some- 
body else. You have such a mild 
and kindly eye. O my beloved, 
you were much in my heart during 
my vigil ! Can we ever be nearer, 
or love each other more, than we 
do ? For that we should want a 
sixth sense, a second soul, a fourth 
dimension, and a boy to push be- 
hind. And even then it would be 
the same thing only more so. It 
would be more than 1 could 
bear. 1 should go up in a pale blue 
flame and become a new love-star. 
Would that be rather dull for you ? 
1 should spin about the heavens 


1 12 Another Englishwoman’s 

writing your name in large letters 
of fire, until the police of the Solar 
System interfered. And you my 
poor astrologer would never take 
your eyes from me. In both cases 
there would be collisions. 

How it rejoices me to write quite 
ecstatically to you ! And I never 
think what it must be to you to read 
it. I am like the young horses that 
(so long as they got through) for- 
got that the driver “ ’as ter git the 
bloomin’ ’bus through arter ’em.” 
They say that love makes selfish- 
ness, but surely 1 have no self any 
longer? You are the sole proprietor, 
and therefore it is you, not 1 , that 
must answer for the selfishness ; and 
as it is you that must suffer from 
it, it cannot be selfishness at all. 
Oh, love’s sublime transmutations ! 


Love-Letters 113 

My dearest, you must come 
quickly to me to-day. Do not ride 
over on your bicycle, since time is 
a consideration ; come in a cab. 
You shall not be later than half- 
past two ; neither shall you be 
any earlier, since in the luncheon 
atmosphere love dwindles. You 
must, shall, and will come. (1 used 
to play at the game of “willing” 
with Mr. Smith, and he said 1 was 
very good at it.) You shall find me 
more absolutely dead-ripe than ever 
before. 

At half-past two 1 shall see you. 
When 1 think of it 1 throw my- 
self down before you. Your foot 

on my neck, please. Thanks. 

8 


14 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XIX 

Beloved : Here is my ridiculous 
little pen quite furious to get to 
work again, though it has only the 
old things to say, and it must know 
that I am frequently hard put to it 
to find new ways of saying them. 
In fact, if our letter-writing does not 
die a divine death in the summer, 1 
shall have to buy a new vocabulary 
or get a friend to help, or give out 
altogether. You ask why 1 have 
not written, and say that you thirst 
for a letter. Why, dearest, 1 could 
drink a hundred of your letters in a 
day and still feel stinted. In truth 
1 have held my agile pen back with 
intent this time. There are some 


Love-Letters 


115 


of your questions to which I have 
no answer. To your enquiry why 
the primrose, I can reply at once, be- 
cause the China aster. And to the 
question why had the fox-gloves it 
may be that a fitting response 
would be, to let the box box. But 
when you ask me, where had the 
French bean, 1 feel sure that it 
would be incorrect to say, to hear 
the larkspur, because of course larks 
don’t. And after that you take me 
out of the garden into deep waters. 
“ Should one not,” you ask, “ make 
great concessions to great unreason- 
ableness, especially when there is a 
good supply of tears at the back of 
it.” There is a case where one 
knows the right answer, but is 
wanted to give the wrong, and as 
a conundrum it is not funny. 


ii6 Another Englishwoman’s 

Of course it is quite obvious that 
your dear mamma has been getting 
to work again, in contravention of 
the truce till February. My posi- 
tion is really rather difficult, as 
1 am sure you will own when 
you come to think about it. 1 am 
supposed to be on affectionate 
terms with two people, yourself and 
your mother, who want exactly 
opposite things. 1 must never show 
any resentment, lest 1 wound her ; 
and I must make it quite clear that 
1 feel it, lest 1 wound you. The 
best course seems to me to do 
what she does not want, but at the 
same time to send her my love and 
best wishes for a happy Christmas. 
And this is not an answer to your 
question ? 1 had hoped that you 
would come, and that 1 should give 


Love-Letters 1 1 7 

it you by word of mouth. Then if 
1 had wanted to go back on any- 
thing, it would have been easier. 
But if I am to write, then I must 
tell you that it is not fair to ask for 
an opinion of the right course under 
certain circumstances without tell- 
ing the circumstances. What are 
they ? And what do you mean by 
a concession ? My offer that your 
mother should have the right of 
stopping what she wants to stop, 
for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one 
years, with six months’ notice, 
seems to me to be a distinct con- 
cession. My offer for an extension 
of this to the term of her natural 
life also seems to me to be a still 
bigger concession. If you see any 
way by which 1 could go further 
and keep you, pray mention it. 1 


ri8 Another Englishwoman’s 

say this without prejudice. Really, 
1 am quite in the dark. Especially 
1 am in the dark as to how you 
manage to bring yourself to say this 
kind of thing. 1 should have thought 
that a worm with a gelatine back- 
bone would— but do not let me vex 
you. Of course 1 quite understand, 
and of course 1 agreed at the begin- 
ning to fold up my self-respect and 
put it away in a drawer, or other- 
wise 1 might have asked, if a man 
cannot bring himself to part from the 
apron-strings in a matter of this 
kind, however great the suffering he 
inflicts on the woman he professes 
to love, is he worth— but again 1 say 
far more than my illustrious prede- 
cessor would have ever permitted 
herself. 

But let us leave a subject that 


Love-Letters 


119 

even this long interval of time has 
not perceptibly sweetened. One 
day I shall win your dear mamma 
over, and, like all good things ex- 
cept myself, she takes some trouble. 
You had hardly to shake the tree 
and off 1 came ; indeed 1 seem to 
myself to have sung out “Please 
shake” from the topmost bough. 
Your mother has not that kind of 
stem: 1 think she’s wired. Come 
and talk it over, and hope for the 
best. In the meantime fill your 
mind with thought of my waiting, 
reach-me-down love for you. And 
also ask yourself this : “At what 
did the crocus ? ” And do not with 
a feverish desire to quit your mind 
of the subject at the earliest oppor- 
tunity, answer: “ At the hellebore.” 
That is not right. 


1 20 Another Englishwoman’s 

But, in spite of every indication to 
the contrary, I want you to believe 
that everything is right with us. 1 
cannot bear to think that your 
weakest point is being assailed — 
that you are troubled in your mind. 
You did wish me to write openly, did 
you not ? 1 have done it. Do not 
think from anything in the tone of 
this letter that 1 am any the less 
your own loving one. That must 1 
ever be. Your own kiss-factory. 


Love-Letters 


I2I 


Letter XX 

Dearest : To-day we got an im- 
pression through the dining-room 
ceiling that the taps in the bath- 
room had been left running. So up 
1 scampered in all haste, and found 
the source of the overflow — dear 
old Nan-nan* in floods of tears for 
grief over the way 1 am treated. 1 
do think that great love ought to 
find great expression for its sorrow, 
and 1 seem to have a way of in- 
spiring great love. 1 could not be 
angry with her. But though I per- 

* — How is it she is still there ? I thought she 

had taken to drink. — Printer’s Reader. 

Answer . — Merely “the blameless thirst of a rabid 
teetotaller. ” — Editor. 


122 Another Englishwoman’s 

suaded her to check her tears, that 
only gave her the opportunity for 
speech. She spoke for some little 
time. She began on the subject of 
your mother’s antecedents, as to 
which 1 trust she is incorrectly in- 
formed. Then from their indecent 
obscurity she dragged your mother 
by the hair, to speak metaphoric- 
ally, through the mire of a misspent 
life. She seems to know quite a 
good deal about your mother’s 
career, but perhaps she exaggerates. 
Then she took your mother’s 
personal appearance and ran it 
rapidly through the stamp-mill. In 
thirty seconds she had expended 
more varied and forcible language 
on your mother’s nose than any 
other nose has received in the whole 
of the world’s history. She walked 


Love-Letters 


123 


all around your mother and prodded 
her. She entered her in an imagi- 
nary dog show in the dachshund 
class. She cut up her moral 
character with a blunt knife, and 
threw the bits into a dust destructor, 
and she seemed quite annoyed 
when 1 interrupted her, explaining 
that she was only just beginning. 
1 left the poor dear soul to her 
misery. 1 cannot convince her 
that 1 am quite satisfied with 
your mother’s somewhat formal 
attitude towards me — “formal” 
hardly overstates it, does it ? 

1 write this because you seem to 
have gathered from my last letter- 
in what way 1 cannot imagine — 
that I was wounded. Whatever 
made you think of that ? You 
surprise me. You and Nan-nan do 


124 Another Englishwoman’s 

get such quaint ideas into your dear 
ridiculous heads. Conundrums 
often affect my nerves, and possibly 
1 may have suffered from another 
attack of the “snaps” when 1 
wrote last. Let not my lord’s heart 
be troubled by the infirmities of his 
much-adoring one. 

Yesterday 1 heard a little piece of 
news that saddened me rather. A 
youth who only two years ago 
thought that 1 constituted his only 
happiness has engaged himself to 
another girl. When 1 refused him 
he said most definitely that he could 
never love another. Perhaps it is an 
overkeenness of sympathy, but 1 feel 
a lapse from a high ideal in another, 
almost with a sense of shame, as if 
it had stained me in some way. 
His letter which I received this 


Love-Letters 


125 


morning was certainly not in the 
best of taste. He says: “1 must 
thank you most warmly for saving 
me from a fatal blunder two years 
ago. When one finds the real 
thing, one feels almost angry at the 
ease with which one might have 
accepted something inferior before. ” 
And there is much more which 
might have been expressed more 
happily, to say the least of it. He 
was the only one. 1 had my signals 
down several other times, but the 
drivers always reversed their en- 
gines instead of coming on. There 
was a touch of the South-Eastern 
Express about you too, dearest. 
You were much behind time, and 
the signals had been down ever so 
long before you realised it and came 
slowly snorting in. And even now 


1 26 Another Englishwoman’s 

your dear mamma is trying to shunt 
you oflf into a siding, instead of 
letting you proceed to your desti- 
nation. 

Arthur’s friend, Mr. Smith, is 
coming to stay for a while at a 
house quite near to us. I suppose 
we shall see a good deal of him. 
Well, one must not let one’s own 
great happiness make one selfish 
towards others, especially when 
they have nice eyes. But that will 
not be for another fortnight. How 
many times shall 1 see you in that 
fortnight, 1 wonder ! Oh, come to 
me early and often, and stay late. 
The U. G. can be put in the break- 
fast-room, and Uncle N. can be sent 
to play at snowballs with Fido in 
the garden, and we shall have the 
drawing-room all to ourselves. And 


Love-Letters 


127 


that reminds me of a thoughtless 
and unkind act that 1 did many years 
ago, when 1 was quite a little girl. 
And though the results of it were all 
for the best, 1 believe, 1 still find it 
hard to forget it or forgive myself. 
It was in the days when Anna was 
engaged. She wished me always 
to be in the drawing-room when he 
called, but to go when she gave 
two short coughs. She wished to 
arrange it so that it might not ap- 
pear arranged. One day a mischiev- 
ous humour took me. She coughed, 
but I did not budge. She coughed 
again and again, and 1 sat and 
smiled. He began to look a little 
nervous. It may have been too that 
her colour was not quite artistic 
that afternoon. Anyhow, she has 
always said that the real reason 


128 Another Englishwoman’s 

why he broke it off was that he 
believed her to be consumptive. 
Her next engagement ended in her 
marriage — one improves at every- 
thing with practice — and she is 
quite happy with her husband and 
the twins ; but that one unkind act 
still rankles in my conscience. 
What a tender conscience it is ! 1 
can well remember that at the age 
of six months 1 one day lost my 
temper and kicked my nurse ; 1 did 
all 1 could to make her see that 1 
was sorry for it afterwards, but the 
kick that is once kicked can never 
be recalled. Often when 1 lie awake 
at night 1 cry when 1 think over 
that little incident. Like any more 
incidents of my early childhood? 
Not to-day, thank you ? Very 
well, then. 


Love-Letters 


129 


Sometimes a shudder runs right 
through me with a kind of ecstatic 
twist in it and a short jump at the 
end. I believe that this is when 
you are thinking about me. I often 
think that perhaps you are thinking 
that I must be thinking that you 
are thinking that I am thinking 
about you. Is that so? 1 want 
to come right into your dear 
thoughts and walk round and see 
everything. 1 cannot know enough 
of you. Oh ! the world was made 
only as a kind of background for 
you, and it is not nearly a good 
enough background. But it is 
sweet of you to spare me a little 
piece of it. Your kisses started the 
clocks, and there was no time be- 
fore them. All waited for you. 
Your loving waiter am 1. 


130 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XXI 

Dearest : 1 do not know quite 
where you are ; though I under- 
stand that you are with your dear 
mamma. But wherever you are, 
you have made me happy. 1 con- 
fess now that 1 have been through 
dark days. There are some people 
who complain at the time when 
they are hurt, and these seem sel- 
fish. There are others who never 
complain at all, and these run a risk 
of being thought insensible rather 
than heroic. But 1, with my great 
instinct for what will look best on 
paper, never complain at the time, 
but always remind people that 


Love-Letters 131 

I might have complained sub- 
sequently. It is of no use to be a 
pure-souled, unselfish angel, unless 
one gets the credit of it. But here 
am I wandering about and making 
disquisitions when all 1 wanted to 
tell you was that I am very happy. 
Firstly, your letter sends me into 
an eighteenth heaven of joy, 
and is quite the sweetest you have 
ever written. Secondly, my pre- 
sent happiness will help to accent- 
uate the following tragedy, which 
I think is about due now. You are 
with your mother again — and this 
can but mean that the axe is laid to 
the touch-hole of the cannon. 

We have had a prolonged frost, 
which has come over from Russia, 
or else from your dear mamma. 
But as the postman came up the 


132 Another Englishwoman’s 

drive with your most lovely letter 
the daffodils leaped from their frozen 
beds, and burst into an ecstatic and 
premature flowering, which has ser- 
iously upset the gardener. All is 
well ; the joy-bells of my heart 
thunder that against a new-born 
sun over the hills. In case you 
miss the exact point of that sent- 
ence, 1 may tell you that it is a 
sample of my poetical writing — 
bronze medal at the Paris Exhi- 
bition. And all my sorrow melts 
away with a triumphant ease be- 
fore your perhaps too facile ex- 
planation that your last letter must 
have miscarried. Oh, write it all 
out again, and let me have it ! And 
press down the flap of the en- 
velope in your usual manner, for 1 
would not miss that sepia mael- 


Love-Letters 


133 


Strom of your thumb. There is 
something so homely and comfort- 
ing about it ! It is just the same 
as when one gets the latest ro- 
mance from the Free Library : for a 
moment one trembles as at an in- 
cursion into the unknown, and then 
one spies on the page the mark of 
some simple artisan’s unwashed 
thumb. “ Someone has been here 
before,” one says, and reads with a 
feeling of deepened security, mixed, 
perhaps, with some other feelings. 

Dear Share of the World — what 
a wonderful large helping of it you 
are to me — I feel that 1 could eat it 
all, and yet there is your mother 
wanting me to put some of it — 
nay, all of it— back. Oh, the true 
love that can take such zigzag snipe 
flights from the carefully sublime 


134 Another Englishwoman’s 

to the naturally domestic ! 1 owe 
much to my illustrious predecessor 
in this line of business. I suffer — 
really suffer — that my jam-pud- 
ding of a brain cannot find words 
to paint more than my usual allot- 
ment of senses (Oh, these disgust- 
ing democracies of fate ! ) will 
communicate to it. 1 have the feel- 
ing that there is more, and that 
1 am missing it. At times 1 almost 
have it by the hair, and then it is 
off, and 1 panting. Pity ; the book 
would have been original. And by 
the way, when one insensibly 
copies Meredith, it is always in 
what he leaves out, and never in 
what he puts in. From these high 
table-lands beyond vocabulary one 
must come back to the old familiar 
track ; and so 1 say that I love you 


Love-Letters 135 

— a remark which I feel almost sure 
that 1 have made before. But 1 
burn the meaning into it with kisses. 
Seeing that the other English- 
woman fancied herself in this ac- 
complishment, and boasted of a 
possible hundred to the minute, 1 
beg to state respectfully that 1 am 
prepared to make a match if any 
gentleman will provide a purse. Do 
not reply unless business is meant. 
Why, what am 1 saying? An- 
other snipe flight from high as- 
piration to the general style of the 
small advertisement in a sporting 
paper, or rather some skylark’s 
downward swoop, with underneath 
it a swan-song. This deceptive 
rally must, 1 feel, but prelude the 
last relapse. Your mother is quietest 
before the storm. 


136 Another Englishwoman’s 

I read your letter again, and this 
mood of melancholy slips from me. 
1 can close my eyes, and you and 1 
are in a crowded room. People 
shake us by the hand, and we get 
rather tired of hearing the same 
things said over and over again. 
Gifts are arrayed on many tables, 
and as usual there are far too many 
pepper-castors. Two detectives, 
disguised to look exactly like de- 
tectives, watch them jealously. 
Will it be soon ? 

Into what a starry happiness you 
have brought me ! The awe of it 
is too much for me. 1 swoon into 
your arms. Catch, please ! 


Love-Letters 


137 


Letter XXII 

Write to me ! I must have it in 
writing ! I will not accept my dis- 
missal until 1 have it in writing. 
It is not enough to put your head 
into the drawing-room and say : 
“ It ’s all off, and so am 1,” and then 
bolt for safety to your mother’s 
carriage in the drive outside. Write 
clearly on one side of the paper 
only, stating your reasons, and en- 
closing a stamped and addressed 
envelope for reply. Dearest, dear- 
est, 1 am so upset I hardly know 
what 1 am saying : take my mean- 
ing. Your mother is not the only 
woman with a Berserker spirit in 


138 Another Englishwoman’s 

her. Tell her that. Tell her it 
from me. Ask her if she has ever 
heard of an action for breach of 
promise. Oh, if 1 could only get 
at her ! 1 would make her see 
things differently, if at all. But 
they are all mad here, telling me to 
keep calm and not spoil my case. 
1 can only write and write in a 
spasm of agony. 1 have split three 
j pens right up to their root on these 
few lines. 1 have spilt the ink. 
1 ’m not myself 1 ’m all sobs and 
sal-volatile. 

Cannot you bring yourself to 
come out from behind those petti- 
coats, and act something like an 
imitation of a man for once in your 
life ? It is not too late for you to 
explain that it was all a jest. I will 
accept that. What have I done? 


Love-Letters 


139 


Have I not loved you enough ? If 
there is any phrase more abject 
than those that 1 have used, tell me 
it, and you shall get it by return of 
post. It was not I that threw the 
brick at your mother’s carriage as 
she drove off with you. I swear it. 
It was Nan-nan, and she was act- 
ing entirely on her own initiative. 

I will do anything on earth to 
get you back. An ordinary toad 
shall be a symbol of pride and 
spirit compared to me. I will even 
go as far as the other English- 
woman, and say that, “ 1 cry to you 
to spare me.” I will wallow in the 
deepest mud of self-humiliation 
until the reader of the letters is 
sickened and the success of the 
book is imperilled. 

Here are kisses. These are our 


14 ° Another Englishwoman’s 

cheap line, and are offered on terms 
that defy competition. I cannot 
see to write more. My hair has 
come down, my heart is broken, 
and I ’ve lost my pocket-handker- 
chief. 1 yelp and yelp. Does that 
not attract you at all ? Oh, write to 
your cast-off adorer that keeps on 
adoring 1 


Love-Letters 


141 


Letter XXIII 

Beloved : So you write, but 
give no reason ! It is perhaps 
a pity that when you sprained 
your ankle 1 lent you, amongst 
other books. An Englishwoman’s 
Love-Letters. That has given you 
false ideas. So far— I admit it — the 
only point where we have even 
touched real life has been my anxi- 
ety to publish a book. But if we 
are to come down to real life for a 
minute or so, it must inevitably 
occur to you that if a decent man 
has to break his word to a woman 
— whether for a reason of heredit- 
ary disease or consanguinity, or 


142 Another Englishwoman’s 

anything else whatever — it is less 
cruel for him to state the reason 
than to run a mystery with a lot of 
cat-lap added about the break be- 
ing no fault of hers. Anybody but 
an ignorant, stupid bounder would 
see that. And the man would not 
rise to any unusually snowy point 
of chivalry if, when he had given 
her a reason that really was a final 
reason, he spared her a humiliation 
and allowed the break to come 
from her. 1 ’m not talking about 
anything Quixotic, but about life as 
decent people live it. And remem- 
ber that even a woman who has 
played the cheap door-scraper to 
your Romeo has some spark of 
self-respect kept somewhere in the 
back-shop during the hot weather, 
and that a coolness may bring it to 


Love-Letters 


143 


the front again. The same woman 
that plays the door-scraper to your 
Romeo would decline to act the 
same part to an ignorant, stupid 
bounder. Even if she did, she has 
relatives, and there is a social opin- 
ion ; if you chose to live abroad, 
nobody would attempt to stretch 
the terms of the extradition treaty. 

Have 1 been mad or dreaming? 
For the first time 1 seem to have 
said something which is perilously 
near to common-sense. 1 own that 
1 am not myself. Let me warn 
you that the U. G. has already or- 
dered a plum-coloured costume, a 
picture hat, and a spotted veil for 
her appearance in court. She is 
naturally an economical woman 
and it will be difficult to stop her. 
Remember too that she has kept 


144 Another Englishwoman’s 

the letter that you wrote when she 
asked for something that she could 
take to Somerset House. 1 pay 
for my board and lodging here, and 
therefore have a certain amount of 
influence. Also, as may be obvious 
to you, she cannot do anything 
without me. 1 can stay proceed- 
ings. So 1 feel sure that when you 
come to think it over you will be 
able to find some reason for the 
break, and will let me know. We 
need not follow that other English- 
woman too accurately. Even if 1 
lose this mystery, as 1 am deter- 
mined to do, 1 can depend on my 
editor to find another. There is, 
for instance, the mystery why he 
is my editor. No, you must not 
think me a rebel ; 1 am far from 
being that. 1 do trust to merit 


Love-Letters 


145 


your patronage for the future. 
Truly, when I think of separation 
from you, my heart splits up and 
my head comes ungummed. What 
is it then that has come between 
us? Speak, and 1 will chain up 
the U. G. And whatever it is 
1 will take it to somebody who is 
familiar with the methods of pro- 
ducing a Shakespearian cypher, and 
he will be able to explain it away. 
For the matter of that, 1 can do a 
little in the way of verbal quibbling 
myself. Then the mists will pass, 
and on the snow-clad peaks of my 
pure and exalted devotion will rest 
once more the rich tints of your 
love newly arisen. 

Oh, picture to yourself the U. G., 
Uncle N., Arthur, and a keen cross- 
examining counsel in an unbroken 


146 Another Englishwoman’s 

phalanx, and myself behind them, 
crying like the Arab women of old, 
“ Sikhim ! Sikhim ! ’ You would 
not like it. No, 1 am wrong; do 
not picture that at all. Think 
rather that you owe me this ex- 
planation, and remember therefore 
that 1 cannot live in this air of 
mystery. It stifles me ; 1 ache— 1 
squirm ! 

1 am your special cut-price article 
that must be cleared. 


Love-Letters 


147 


Letter XXIV 

So 1 know your mother’s reason 
now at last, and I own that it is 
final — that is to say, that there is no 
end to it, and that it works round 
and round, which may or may not 
be what “ final ” means. Without 
seeing her I am convinced ; pray 
assure her that there will be no 
necessity for her to call. 1 will not 
even point out that in opening your 
escritoire with a skeleton key and 
reading my letters to you her con- 
duct was not altogether la pomme 
de terre la plus propre. 

She says that, as 1 consider her a 
lunatic, she has a fair objection to 


148 Another Englishwoman’s 

the marriage, on the ground of in- 
sanity in your family. 1 have tried 
to argue it out in vain. The state- 
ments in my letters were not always 
scientifically accurate, and 1 was 
always prepared to accept the word 
“ eccentric.” Surely, those who 
can recognise facts correctly and 
make just deductions from them are 
eminently sane. If she is correct 
in accepting the view that she is a 
lunatic, then she must be sane, and 
the objection is nullified at once. 
At least it would be, if one could 
shut out of one’s mind the un- 
doubted fact that nobody who was 
sane would accept the theory that 
he was a lunatic. On the other 
hand, she may be incorrect in ac- 
cepting the view that she is a luna- 
tic, and this would show a want of 


Love-Letters 


149 


appreciation of facts and of the 
power of drawing just deductions 
from them that could only be found 
in the mentally deranged. But as 
1 have said before, if she is really 
deranged, then her power to recog- 
nise the fact and make a correct 
deduction from it is conclusive 
proof that she is nothing of the 
kind. And in that case we might 
set our minds at rest, if we could 
only forget that no sane person 
would accept a theory of his insan- 
ity ; and, as she does this, our 
worst fears would undoubtedly be 
realised, were it not that in taking 
the view that she is a lunatic, she 
shows a judgment and reasoning 
power that no lunatic would pos- 
sess ; and thus the only reason 
which one could bring forward that 


150 Another Englishwoman’s 

would disprove her sanity would be 
the fact that she admits her lunacy, 
which no sane person would dream 
of doing, though this becomes in- 
validated when we consider that — 
oh, my poor head ! 

It goes round and round. 1 do 
not refer to my head, though that 
is similarly affected, but to the ar- 
gument. There is no stopping it. 
It revolves over me, like the wheels 
of the car of Jugger-something-or- 
other, and crushes the life out of 
me. 1 give in. You say that you 
can follow her argument ; you have 
a strong power in you to have done 
that. You have told me the word 
1 am to say to you : it is your bid- 
ding, so 1 will say it, if you will 
kindly wait half a minute till 1 have 
explained something. 


Love-Letters 


151 

I am well aware that if a man of 
twenty-eight does not marry in ac- 
cordance with his mother’s direc- 
tions, she is empowered by English 
law to take away all his property, 
with the exception of the clothes he 
stands up in and one tooth-brush, 
and to give it to some other little 
boy. You tell me that if 1 had not 
given you up — or, rather, if you had 
not given me up — she would have 
done this, and you would have 
been compelled to accept the only 
berth at present open to you — that 
of a waiter at an Italian restaurant 
at Clapham. 1 want to say to you 
that this has had no effect upon me 
whatever in bringing about my 
submission. Money, it has been 
well observed, is dross ; besides, 1 
have some of my own. But (in the 


152 Another Englishwoman’s 

interests of the letters when col- 
lected) 1 think that a stained-glass, 
renunciatory-martyr style would 
make a pleasing and pathetic vari- 
ety. 1 may as well begin on it at 
once, for Arthur’s friend, Mr. Smith, 
is coming in to tea this afternoon, 
and 1 must get this letter finished 
first. 

So, dearest — for that you must 
ever be — for the last time, since 
you will it so, a letter goes from 
me youward, laden heavily with 
the honey of my love. That 1 can 
suffer so and live, is my greatest 
wonder : that you may rather en- 
joy it than not is my deepest 
prayer. Oh, let me to the end be 
the worm that never turned, ever 
faithful and submissive ! And since 
you command it, 1 say now that 


Love-Letters 


153 


word of farewell. It comes from 
one who can never fare well again. 
Sobs choke my voice, and a blue 
lime seems to be wobbling all over 
me. May you be hoppee ! Fawh- 
well ! 

Note. — All the letters which follow were 
found lying loosely together on the hall- 
table. It was fully intended that they 
should not be forwarded to their destination 
until after the death of their writer and the 
man to whom they were written. Unfor- 
tunately, they were found by the new house- 
maid, a lady of conscientious and literal 
turn of mind, who had been instructed in 
her last place to post anything that she 
found on the hall-table. So she posted 
them, together with the card-salver and a 
carriage clock. She is at present disen- 
gaged. 


154 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XXV 

To-day a brown -paper parcel 
came to me, with twopence to pay 
on it. Within 1 found Dr. Pif- 
bright’s Thoughts on the Epithe- 
lium, an old IVhitaher, and An 
Englishwoman’s Love-Letters. Thus, 
though no writing accompanies 
them, 1 am made sure how final 
and definite the break is to be, since 
you thus return the only present 
that 1 ever sent you. It is a 
strange irony : 1 wanted so much 
to get rid of those books and to 
keep you for evermore, but the 
books are returned and you are 
lost to me. It reminds one of that 


Love-Letters 


155 


sad song which tells us how the 
little boy was drowned, but the cat 
came back. These old Whitakers 
and past Bradshaws fight hard for 
their lives ; they may be thrown 
into the waste-paper basket in the 
evening, but they are out and on 
the table again by morning. They 
are rather like that other English- 
woman ; they never seem to know 
when to go ; they cling. 

1 would that my blind eyes could 
see that fault in me which makes 
even that simple present of the 
days of our happiness no longer 
tolerable to you. It is no vanity 
that makes that blindness. Love 
cut from me all my pride, and even 
left me only just enough self-re- 
spect to make me brush my teeth 
at the usual intervals. Grief can- 


156 Another Englishwoman’s 

not put that pride back again. 
Without questioning, I must know 
that this is so : that while my 
whole being is still one psalm of 
praise to you, you must remove 
everything that an association with 
me has made nauseous. Now in- 
deed 1 will show you how little 
pride 1 have, for of all the presents 
that you gave me 1 will not return 
one. Because your dear choice 
once honoured them, because your 
hands once handled them, and be- 
cause as articles of jewelry they 
have a considerable intrinsic value, 
1 still stick on. And now truly 1 
may cry my “ De profundis ! ” I 
can get no lower. Still, if some 
fifty or sixty years hence you come 
back to me and find me waiting, 
sitting up and begging as usual. 


Love-Letters 


157 


this at least you shall be able to 
say of me ; that whatever my other 
sins might be, and whatever your 
treatment of me might be, 1 never 
showed any resentment. No ; 1 
kiss the label on the parcel — kiss 
it desperately until it comes un- 
gummed, for it is in your own 
handwriting. 

But as 1 turn afresh to that other 
Englishwoman, who now more 
than ever should be my model, 1 
see points of divergence arising. 
Would you know what they are ? 
Ask Mr. Smith. 1 give you at 
present all the lowliness and deso- 
lation that you could wish, but 1 
cannot guarantee their permanence. 
While they last, 1 must make the 
most of them. 

I am so tired ! 1 fancy you would 


158 Another Englishwoman’s 

make anybody feel tired. To-night 
1 can write but little more. (Will 
your eyes ever fall on that little ?) 
But this must be said : 1 do not 
want to have injured you in any 
way. 1 should like to hear you say 
that they have not hurt you — these 
few months that 1 have come into 
your life. If you have suffered in 
the least degree through me, 1 do 
apologise. I am so sorry ! 1 do 
beg pardon for existing ; it was 
quite unintentional on my part. If 
you will overlook it this time, it 
shall not occur again. Is that hum- 
ble enough ? Ah, what a helpmeet 
Mr. Uriah Heep missed in me ! 

Good-bye — the eternal good-bye 
that tolls deeply the funeral in my 
heart. Rather pretty that, is n’t it ? 
1 ’ve half a mind to say it again. 


Love-Letters 


159 


Letter XXVI 

So I have seen you again, be- 
loved, and my eyes are still burned 
with the delirious spectacle. It was 
yesterday, in Oxford Street. 1 was 
coming out of the bun-shop, and 
you were going into the photog- 
rapher’s. It was kind of you not to 
let your eyes fall on me. Had they 
done so, 1 should have opened my 
mouth wide, jumped into the air, 
and expired kicking. But it was 
your back that was towards me, 
perhaps because you followed the 
conventional habit of going into 
the photographer’s face first. Above 
the back was your neck, with the 


i6o Another Englishwoman’s 

collar round it, and above the neck 
your head, surmounted by a hat. 
Yes, that was the first thought that 
came to me : 1 had passed out of 
your life, and yet it had not altered 
the order of your being ! There 
was the neck above the back, and 
the hat above the head, just as 
when 1 first saw you and my life 
began. It did not vex me — in fact 
it takes a good deal to vex me. 
But if your hat had come just be- 
tween your neck and your head, or 
your head had come just between 
your neck and your back, it would 
have been a kind of consolation ; it 
would have shown that the up- 
heaval was as tremendous in its 
effects with you as it has been with 
me. Even if you had just worn 
your collar round your back, it 


Love-Letters i6i 

would have been a sign that you 
had really altered. Oh, let me not 
be selfish in my love ! 1 would not 
have you different. Only some 
sympathy in suffering would have 
meant so much to me. 

And indeed in the moment that 
1 saw you 1 realised that some 
change there had been. You are 
at least two inches taller — 1 think 
it improves you, if anything could 
improve perfection. Your back is 
more bent, as if you too had felt 
the weight of tragedy. My great- 
est grief is that 1 cannot come and 
comfort you for the loss of me, and 
— sadder still — the fact that if 1 
could, the comfort would not be 
needed. 

1 hear that you have been ill, 
that you have had the measles. 

xz 


1 62 Another Englishwoman’s 

Arthur brings me any word of you 
that may happen to be about ; none 
could be dearer or kinder than he. 
You must be better since 1 saw you 
to-day. For that 1 am thankful. 1 
do hope that it was not grief for 
me that gave you those measles ; a 
sixpenny handbook on domestic 
medicine that 1 have consulted does 
not mention grief as a direct cause 
of this particular complaint. How 
gladly would 1 have had some or 
all of those measles instead of you ! 
But as usual 1 have no complaint. 

Nobody knows — 1 think nobody 
knows. 1 always try to be cheer- 
ful. 1 seldom burst from the room 
in a flood of tears, push the plate 
away untasted, clutch the chair- 
back, wear deep mourning, or 
threaten suicide ; and never when 


Love-Letters 163 

Mr. Smith is here. I do not wish 
any one of my dear ones to be 
downcast because of me. What a 
perfect angel you have missed ! Of 
you 1 can have no hard thought. 
Who could be kinder or nobler 
than you have shown yourself to 
be ? (1 must discuss this problem 
with Mr. Smith.) Oh, let me for 
ever kiss the hand that strikes, the 
boot that kicks ! It is not very 
much to ask, but it is denied me. 
Fate screams its inexorable “Out- 
side only ! ” at me. To-day, for 
the last time, 1 have seen you. The 
picture lies for ever graven on the 
copper of my heart, bitten in, per- 
manent. Above you was the sim- 
ple announcement that the terms 
were strictly cash. In the window 
at the side was a crayon enlarge- 


164 Another Englishwoman’s 

ment of a fat baby, with a glazed 
and drunken expression, sitting on 
a plush cushion. One moment and 
the door swung, and your dear 
back had passed from my view. 
The baby still stared drunkenly ; 
the notice still insisted that one 
had to pay at the time of the sit- 
ting ; in the streets the traffic went 
on relentlessly. But for me the gas 
was turned off, and the lights were 
out : you had gone ! Had you 
known that 1 was so near, would 
you have turned ? You would have 
seen one whom sorrow has greatly 
changed, like some wan and patient 
martyr in a stained-glass window, 
with the exception of the modern 
costume and a string-bag full of 
parcels. 1 shall never know. I can 
only take my sorrow into my own 


Love-Letters 165 

room and write it out carefully, and 
all in vain, since no eye but my 
own will ever see it. Oh, my be- 
loved, if you should ever find that 
this barrier which has come be- 
tween us is no longer effective to 
keep us apart, be sure to let me 
know. A post-card will receive 
prompt attention. 

Postscripts, as 1 have observed 
before, 1 never do write, but Arthur 
has just told me that you were not 
in London yesterday. So it must 
have been some other man that 1 
saw going into the photographer’s. 
Silly mistake of mine ! Strictly 
speaking, 1 suppose 1 ought to 
write this letter all over again. 


i66 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XXVII 

Beloved : The thought keeps 
troubling me that 1 have not yet 
sent you a full account of my early 
childhood. For this, at least two 
reasons may be found — that you 
do not want it, and that 1 (since 
my memory is notoriously weak) 
cannot give it. Indeed, one infantile 
recollection that 1 sent to you still 
weighs heavily on my conscience. 
But 1 have a good precedent (at 
five shillings) for believing that 
when a man shows himself quite 
uninterested in a woman’s future, 
her correct course is to provide him 
with details as to her past. 1 will 


Love-Letters 


167 


not say that the argument is abso- 
lutely clear to me, but still precedent 
(at five shillings) is precedent, and 
must not be neglected. So let brisk 
imagination wait on halting mem- 
ory, and let me not stay out of 
anything. Reminiscences of early 
childhood ? — why, certainly. This 
way, please, and kindly mind the 
step. 

1 think my earliest recollection is 
of my second month. 1 did not 
actually begin a diary until 1 was 
three months old, and that fixes 
the date with sufficient precision 
of my antecedent reminiscences. 
One sunny day 1 was conscious 
that 1 was being taken by my nurse 
to some local form of entertain- 
ment. It was light in character 
and serious in purpose — amateur 


1 68 Another Englishwoman’s 

Christy Minstrels on behalf of the 
Church Restoration Fund. I heard 
one man with a blackened face ask 
another, similarly afflicted, why a 
miller wore a white hat. 1 was, 
undoubtedly, young, but 1 was tired 
to desperation of that riddle al- 
ready. 1 hurled my feeding-bottle 
with deadly precision in the face 
of the curate from the next parish, 
who had come over to help, and 
had put that senile question. At 
the same time 1 raised screams 
which were successful in closing 
the entertainment and emptying 
the hall. Now that it is too late, 
that misdoing weighs heavily upon 
my mind. The riddle had certainly 
great age, but it is possible that the 
curate had found a new answer. 1 
shall never know now. 


Love-Letters 


169 


It must have been some days 
after this that an aunt put me down 
on the carpet, and told me to crawl 
to the other side of the room and 
open the door of a certain cupboard. 
I told her to state her terms and she 
should have a reply by return of 
post. She said she was prepared 
to offer the very special inducement 
that, if 1 did open the cupboard, I 
should find in it something to my 
advantage. This being so, 1 crawled 
half-way across the floor, and then, 
suspecting a police trap, crawled 
back again. My aunt spanked me, 
and that saddened me at the time. 
What saddens me now is that 1 did 
not know, and now never shall 
know, what was waiting for me in 
that cupboard. This problem, be- 
loved, still keeps me awake on 


170 Another Englishwoman’s 

those few occasions when the 
memory of you would have per- 
mitted me to sleep. Perhaps in 
that darksome cupboard that some- 
thing to my advantage still waits 
with hands outstretched. 1 can 
sympathise, with depth and bitter- 
ness, with that waiting attitude : 1 
have been there myself. 

On referring to my notes made at 
the time, 1 find that the arrival of 
Arthur in this world of sin consider- 
ably upset me. 1 was not jealous 
at all, that has never been my fault. 
The trouble was, that 1 did not un- 
derstand the purpose for which Ar- 
thur had been intended. 1 believe 
that trouble is by no means uncom- 
mon in nurseries. A manual con- 
taining plain directions, and entitled 
Baby Brothers, and How to Work 


Love-Letters 171 

Them, would, I think, command a 
ready sale. At the age of one year 
and a half 1 remember enquiring for 
something of the kind at Mudie’s, 
and being put off with an illustrated 
Hans Andersen. The consequen- 
ces to Arthur might have been seri- 
ous. For some few weeks 1 
generally used him to throw over 
the bannisters, to attract the atten- 
tion of anyone to whom I wished to 
speak in the hall below. Some- 
times the people in the hall caught 
him, and sometimes they did not ; 
on one or two occasions he was a 
good deal chipped, and 1 believe 
some fault was found with me for 
what was after all a sin of ignorance. 
With what hideous injustice child- 
ren are treated ! It only once oc- 
curred to me to regard him as fuel. 


172 Another Englishwoman’s 

and to attempt to put him on the 
fire, and then 1 was checked. Child- 
ren are far too often checked, 1 
think ; it spoils free development. 
A child is generally amenable to ar- 
gument. As soon as my nurse 
pointed out that Arthur was my 
brother, and that 1 loved him, and 
that it would be a pity to break 
him, 1 replied: “Quite so; but 
why could n’t you have said that 
before ? ” 

What grief that my childhood 
was never linked with yours ! We 
might have gathered violets to- 
gether, and anything else that was 
not nailed to the floor. Your 
mother would have had time to 
familiarise herself slowly with an 
idea which she is at present unable 
to welcome. But you went your 


Love-Letters 1 73 

way and 1 mine. You became a 
“ rorty young dog ” — I wonder how 
does one rort ? — and I became a 
perfect angel, with well-marked lit- 
erary proclivities. Perhaps our loss 
is the public’s eternal gain. Poor 
public ! It would have had another 
three letters and heard all about it. 
1 doubt even if three letters would 
have been enough. 

As it is, 1 have been able to stew 
my childhood down into the com- 
pass of one short letter. 1 have not 
given you all or nearly all. But it 
may be that then, as in later life, a 
little of me will content you. Fare- 
well : From my heart 1 say it. 


174 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XXVIII 

So your dear mother is no longer 
with you ! 1 had always thought it 
possible that one day she would 
lose her temper with some man and 
marry him, and now it has come to 
pass. You’ve already had the meas- 
les, and now you are going to have 
a new papa ; so many things crowd 
into a man’s life to make up for all 
that he loses 1 It may have been 
her approaching marriage or your 
illness that had softened her, for it 
was at that time that she sent me a 
bundle of early rhubarb and a card 
of condolence. It was wicked and 
bitter of me to send them both back 


Love-Letters 


175 


again. But as full compensation for 
injuries received, they seemed to 
me a little inadequate, and besides, 
1 never did like rhubarb. It is too 
late now to tell her that 1 am sorry. 
Yet let me record it here. I hope 
that she will be happy, and that the 
local curate will be happy with her. 
Had she married a man of wild and 
imperious nature, she would have 
taught him to sham dead, draw 
water from a well, and pick out any 
card selected by the audience, at 
the word of command, in about 
three weeks. What will happen 
now that she has married a man 
who is fairly tame already ? 1 do 

not think he will live very long. 
Still, 1 do hope they will be happy. 
1 hope you will be happy. 1 hope 
everybody will be happy except 


176 Another Englishwoman’s 

myself. Never mind me, I can die. 
It ’s of no consequence. 

Last night you came into my 
dreams. We were in a large omni- 
bus with several other people. You 
had a hammer and tacks, and were 
fastening everybody’s clothes down 
to the seats with the tacks. 1 asked 
why, and you said it was to pre- 
vent fraud. Just then a very red- 
faced conductor looked in and said 
that he was at home on the first 
and third Tuesdays, and you thre.w 
the hammer in his face, and the 
omnibus blew up, and I woke. It 
seems a little hard that when one 
does dream of one’s dearest, from 
whom one is parted for ever, it 
should be a silly sort of dream like 
that. 1 would much sooner have 
had something with an angel and a 


Love-Letters 


177 


sunset in it. Fortunately, 1 am 
quite used now to never having 
anything 1 want. It does not mat- 
ter in the least. Nothing matters. 
When 1 am dead 1 shall be very 
much less in the way. 

Why, there ’s Mr. Smith coming 
down the drive, and my hair ’s all 
like this, and 1 ’m not dressed ! 1 ’ve 
no time to write another word, 1 
must rush. 


178 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XXIX 

Every day 1 am giving myself a 
little more pain than 1 need — for 
the sake of you. 1 am giving my- 
self my own letters to read again, 
day by day, as 1 wrote them : 1 
kept copies of course, for the Uncle 
Grandmother insisted upon it in 
view of contingencies which might 
arise. I take one a day, every 
morning before breakfast or as re- 
quired, like any other kind of pill. 
1 cannot see how it will benefit me, 
and 1 am positively sure that it can- 
not benefit you, and the only dif- 
ference that it makes to anyone 
else is that 1 cry steadily through 


Love-Letters 1 79 

breakfast, and the U. G. thinks 
that I am going into a decline. But 
I keep on with it. It was Mr. 
Smith who suggested it; the more 
I see of Mr. Smith, the more I am 
convinced that he knows his way 
about without a map. 1 limit my- 
self to one a morning, because I 
am far from strong; my own in- 
clination is to get through them as 
quickly as possible and then burn 
them, or, as an alternative course, 
to burn them first. 

They never make me angry with 
you, those letters ; but they do fre- 
quently make me angry with my- 
self. 1 think all good women are 
by nature economical, and regret 
anything in the way of absolute 
waste. 1 would not (not just yet) 
criticise you in any way, but 1 


i8o Another Englishwoman’s 

cannot help thinking that your little 
wants might have been supplied 
much cheaper. 1 have paid too 
much, and it is additionally galling 
to think that the goods have not 
been delivered. Inexorable justice 
calls to me that 1 must not grumble 
if you took me at precisely my own 
valuation — half nothing, with a lib- 
eral discount for cash. 1 suppose 
you would have thrown me over 
just the same, even if 1 had not so 
frequently implied that the honour 
of cleaning your boots would alone 
make me feel dizzy. And if 1 had 
been a shade less profuse and ebul- 
lient, 1 might have had some frag- 
ments of self-respect still left. They 
would have been useful to me. 1 
can imagine circumstances under 
which they might blossom once 


Love-Letters i8i 

more. 1 will not say more than 
that — not just yet. 

Your letters 1 have never read 
again, and if anybody tells you that 
1 have made elaborate arrangements 
to have them buried with me when 
I die, don’t you believe it. 1 have 
grown rather tired of that other 
Englishwoman, and do not want to 
follow her much further. The last 
of your letters, if you want to know, 
went into the greenhouse furnace 
last night. Mr. Smith helped. 

1 am not going to say any more 
to-night, because the person that I 
am angry with happens to be my- 
self. But 1 have the feeling that 
there may be more to say soon — 
very soon. 


1 82 Another Englishwoman’s 


Letter XXX 

Dear Mr. ; A secret that 

will be no secret soon : before 1 am 
done with this year 1 shall be Mrs. 
Smith. This will be a disappoint- 
ment to you. 

It would undoubtedly have been 
a greater compliment to you if 1 
had decided to die. On my death- 
bed 1 should have sent Arthur to 
you, and he would have brought 
back word that you, like that cur 
that the other Englishwoman was 
so fond of, sent your “kind re- 
gards,” or some other equally suit- 
able message. 1 have the feeling 
that in your heart of hearts you 


Love-Letters 


183 

would have enjoyed this more. 
You would have gone bleating 
about it to all the men you know, 
with a poor assumption of sorrow, 
and a still poorer dissimulation of 
vanity. That is what the other cur 
did when the other Englishwoman 
died ; 1 think 1 can swear to that. 
But you will have to do without it, 
even at the risk of depriving my last 
letter of the most stereotyped form 
of pathos. 

In deciding not to pay you the 
graceful compliment of a despairing 
death,l have been influenced chief- 
ly by the facts that my health is 
fortunately good, and that 1 have 
every motive and desire to live. 
Also, 1 have grown rather tired of 
the door-mat attitude. 1 am glad 
that the man that 1 am going to 


184 Another Englishwoman’s 

marry does not, since he happens 
to be a man, wish me to degrade 
myself and my sex in every word 
that 1 say and every line that 1 
write. 

Pray do not reproach yourself. 1 
feel that this advice is not needed, 
and that nothing could possibly 
spoil your self-content. You will 
have your little story about the poor 
girl whofell madly in love with you, 
and finally married another man 
from pique : 1 can hear those stories 
now. But again 1 say, do not re- 
proach yourself. 1 think it must 
have been obvious to you for some 
time past that if Mr. Smith wished 
to marry me, you and your mother 
and everything that is yours would 
be passed out. Had 1 met him 
sooner, your mother would have 


Love-Letters 185 

been spared much trouble. Also, 
though it is true that you have 
throughout shown less chivalry 
than a dead fish might, 1 do not 
wish you to reproach yourself for 
that either. Two wrongs do not 
make a right, but it must be a com- 
fort to you to feel that you lose 
nothing by contrast. On the con- 
trary, 1 have shown myself just the 
woman for a manikin of that type. 
And for that you might expect me 
to reproach myself, but 1 do not, 
and 1 will tell you why. For this 
great reason why 1 do not reproach 
myself is also your best reason for 
not reproaching yourself either. 

Briefly, we are not real. We are 
only a lot of rubbish that the editor 
has made up. In that, perhaps, 
lies our last and closest resemblance 


1 86 Love-Letters 

to the other Englishwoman and the 
insufferable bounder who sent her 
his “ remembrances” on her death- 
bed. They are better made up and 
better edited, but that is all. They 
are not real either. If it is found 
their creation has soothed the vanity 
of a man of imagination, 1 shall not 
be surprised. 

But to realise one’s unreality is 
deadly. It makes one feel that one 
cannotpossiblygoon. Now 1 cannot 
longer hold together, but my love 
for you is the first part of me that 
— thank goodness ! — has given out. 
The rest follows. 1 fade 

slowly 

away. 

I ’m almost 


Apr-6 1901 


MAR 88 1901 




